Controls Engineer
Gradient Robotics, San Francisco
The role
We're looking for a Controls Engineer to own motion from command to actuator. That means modeling and identifying the physical system, understanding exactly why an axis or arm is limited to the performance it has, and designing controllers that deliver sub-millimeter precision under real load. You'll be the person who can look at a Bode plot from the robot and explain what's in it. You'll also choose and source the motors, drives, and sensors your controllers run on, deciding where an off-the-shelf servo drive is the right answer and where we need something custom.
What you will do
- Model and identify axes and arms using physical principles and measurement (e.g., swept-sine/chirp FRFs, step and noise-based ID, dynamic parameter identification), maintaining accuracy against hardware.
- Diagnose and resolve field issues including resonances, instability, non-linearities (friction, backlash), joint compliance, latency, sensor noise, and dynamic variability.
- Design and tune control loops: