Robotics Intern - Mobile Manipulation, Hardware

At Toyota Research Institute (TRI), we’re on a mission to improve the quality of human life. We’re developing new tools and capabilities to amplify the human experience. To lead this transformative shift in mobility, we’ve built a world-class team in Energy & Materials, Human-Centered AI, Human Interactive Driving, and Robotics.

This is a summer 2025 paid 12-week internship opportunity. Please note that this internship will be an in-office role.

The Internship

This internship will be embedded within a world-class Robotics team with the mission to develop and integrate innovative solutions that enable a robot to perform complex, human-level mobile manipulation tasks, navigate with and among people, and learn and adapt over time. The team emphasizes developing, deploying, and validating systems in real-world environments.

The Team

The Mobile Manipulation team is focused on heavily leveraging machine learning to marry perception, prediction, and action to produce robust, reactive, coordinated robot behaviors, bootstrapping from simulation, leveraging large amounts of data, and adapting in real world scenarios.

TRI has the runway, roadmap, and expertise to transition the technology development to a product that impacts the lives of millions of people. Apply to join a fast moving team that demands high-risk innovation and learning from failures, using rigorous processes to identify key technologies, develop a robust, high quality system, and quantitatively evaluate performance. As part of the team, you will be surrounded and supported by experts in mobile manipulation at TRI, and be a part of TRI's positive and diverse culture!

• Contribute to the design and development of a next generation mobile manipulation platform to accelerate advancement of useful human-scale tasks.
• Develop prototypes and perform trade studies to identify and specify key system components, including sensors, compute, communications, and actuation, of the platform.
• Design and integrate creative solutions; combining actuation, structure, and sensing, as well as new mechanisms and actuation for human-scale manipulation and mobility.
• Design, bring up, and debug custom electrical sub-systems, including power systems, motor control, and sensor interfaces, and the overall electrical system.
• Develop firmware for control of mechanisms, acquisition of sensor data, and communications with the rest of the system.

• B.S. or M.S. in an engineering-related field.
• Experience designing and integrating hardware for real-world robotic systems, particularly mobile manipulation systems.
• Experience in creative and novel design along with integration of mechanical, control, and sensing systems, including various fabrication techniques and materials.
• The ability to design and deploy integrated mechanical/sensing systems that complement and bring to bear advanced software and learning algorithms.
• Experience in architecture, schematic design, and PCB layout of complex electrical subsystems.
• The ability to implement interface, communications, and control firmware, with microcontrollers or FPGAs.
• Experience in design for small scale contract manufacturing and assembly, and working with industrial designers for early stage product design.
• An outstanding teammate with strong interpersonal skills.

The pay range for this position at commencement of employment is expected to be between $45 and $65/hour for California-based roles; however, base pay offered may vary depending on multiple individualized factors, including market location, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. Note that TRI offers a generous benefits package including vacation and sick time. Details of participation in these benefit plans will be provided if an employee receives an offer of employment.

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TRI is fueled by a diverse and inclusive community of people with unique backgrounds, education and life experiences. We are dedicated to fostering an innovative and collaborative environment by living the values that are an essential part of our culture. We believe diversity makes us stronger and are proud to provide Equal Employment Opportunity for all, without regard to an applicant’s race, color, creed, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, age, physical or mental disability, medical condition, religion, marital status, genetic information, veteran status, or any other status protected under federal, state or local laws.

Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records for employment.