Intern Research Scientist (Robotics)

About the role

The AI Robot Association (AIRoA) is recruiting an intern research scientist for its robotics project, which aims to collect one million hours of humanoid robot operation data with hundreds of robots and use it to train Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models. The project is part of a national initiative supported by a 20.5 billion yen investment from NEDO, and the work takes place at the Tokyo Ryutsu Center in Heiwajima, Ota-ku.

Key responsibilities

• Design and build scalable data collection systems operating across hundreds of humanoid and mobile robots.
• Develop semi-autonomous teleoperation systems with low latency, high controllability and minimal operator workload.
• Create automated pipelines to deploy trained models and evaluate them in simulation and on real robots.
• Work closely with the VLA team to integrate and deploy models on physical robots.

Required profile

• Currently pursuing (or recently completed) a Master's or PhD in Robotics, Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science or a related field.
• Solid understanding of robotics concepts and a strong motivation to conduct publishable research.
• Hands-on experience with physical robots such as manipulators, mobile robots or lab platforms.
• Ability to work independently and collaboratively in a research team.

Required skills

• Proficiency in at least one robotics programming language such as Python, C++ or ROS 1/2.
• Preferred: publications or conference submissions (RSS, CoRL, ICRA, IROS).
• Preferred: teleoperation systems, leader-follower architectures, AR/VR interfaces, impedance or force control, tactile or force-torque sensing, and simulators such as MuJoCo, PyBullet or Isaac Sim.