Locomotion & Whole-Body Control Engineer - Humanoid (human)

We are building the control intelligence that enables our humanoid robot 4NE1 to move, balance, manipulate, and interact safely in complex real-world environments. We are looking for a Locomotion & Whole-Body Control Engineer to join our Humanoid Controls team in Zurich and develop the core algorithms that power dynamic locomotion and whole-body behavior on the physical robot.

This role spans the key layers of the humanoid control stack, from trajectory optimization and model predictive control (MPC) for motion generation to whole-body control (WBC) for executing those motions reliably on real hardware at high control frequencies.

You will work on contact-rich humanoid dynamics, real-time optimization, and robust control deployment, collaborating closely with state estimation, simulation, low-level controls, hardware, and AI teams to enable stable and adaptable humanoid behavior in practical applications.

Your mission & challenges

Develop whole-body motion generation and control algorithms for the 4NE1 humanoid, including locomotion, balancing, contact transitions, and loco-manipulation tasks.

Design and implement trajectory optimization and MPC pipelines for humanoid motion generation, considering robot state, contact schedules, ground reaction forces, centroidal momentum, and joint trajectories.

Build and maintain QP-based whole-body control and task-space inverse dynamics frameworks to execute planned motions on the physical robot at frequencies up to 1 kHz.

Develop and improve dynamic models of the humanoid system, including floating-base rigid-body dynamics, forward and inverse kinematics, Jacobians, and full-body dynamics computation.

Formulate and implement kinematic, dynamic, contact, friction, torque, stability, and joint-limit constraints across planning and control layers.

Improve solver performance, numerical robustness, and real-time reliability of optimization pipelines deployed on hardware.

Deploy, tune, and validate locomotion and whole-body control algorithms on physical humanoid robots, including debugging hardware-specific effects, contact models, and control performance.

Develop high-performance C++ software for real-time control systems and build Python-based tooling for analysis, testing, and prototyping.

Collaborate closely with engineers across controls, hardware, simulation, perception, AI, and systems teams to deliver integrated humanoid capabilities.

What we can look forward to

MSc or PhD in Robotics, Controls, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field.

4+ years of hands-on experience developing locomotion, MPC, trajectory optimization, and/or whole-body control for physical robotic systems.

Strong foundation in floating-base articulated rigid-body dynamics and contact modeling.

Deep understanding of centroidal dynamics, SRBD, LIPM, or related reduced-order models used in humanoid locomotion.

Strong background in optimal control, constrained optimization, and model predictive control.

Experience developing and deploying whole-body control frameworks such as TSID, inverse dynamics, or hierarchical QP controllers on real robotic hardware.

Hands-on experience deploying real-time control systems operating at 500 Hz–1 kHz.

Strong C++ skills and good Python proficiency for tooling, diagnostics, and prototyping.

Practical understanding of real-world robotic control challenges including actuator limits, state-estimation uncertainty, communication latency, contact uncertainty, and model mismatch.

Strong collaboration and communication skills with the ability to work effectively across multidisciplinary robotics teams.

Nice to Have

Direct experience working on humanoid robots or other floating-base high-DOF robotic systems.

Familiarity with Pinocchio, MuJoCo, Crocoddyl, OCS2, TSID, IPOPT, CasADi, or similar robotics and optimization frameworks.

Experience with hierarchical QP, operational space control, task prioritization, and contact force optimization.

Experience with dynamic walking, balance recovery, push recovery, and multi-contact locomotion.

Experience with manipulation-aware locomotion and whole-body coordination of arms, torso, and lower body.

Experience with torque-controlled robots and high-bandwidth electric actuation.

Publications at RSS, ICRA, IROS, or CoRL related to locomotion, whole-body control, optimization, or humanoid robotics.