2027 PhD Graduate – Missile GN&C Engineer - Flight Navigation, Guidance & Control Evaluation and Development Group

About the role

The Strategic Flight Guidance, Navigation, and Control Group at APL is seeking a passionate PhD Grad to contribute to the design, implementation, and evaluation of GN&C subsystems for the nation's primary missile systems.

Responsibilities

• Develop innovative GN&C methodologies for next-generation strategic missile flight systems.
• Apply state estimation techniques to solve problems with very large state representations for applications in on-board implementations and post-flight analysis.
• Develop and understand underlying weapon system navigation related error models from a fundamental math and physics perspective.
• Work with modeling and simulation tools such as MATLAB and Simulink to generate navigation sensor models and conduct performance trade studies.
• Develop navigation algorithms for 6-DOF simulations.
• Present analysis and results to sponsors that depend on APL to independently inform weapon system performance and designs.

Requirements

• Have, or soon to have, a PhD in Engineering, Physics, Math, or a related field.
• Have had coursework and/or research experience in flight dynamics, guidance, navigation, or control, linear state-space systems, physical system modeling, or estimation theory.
• Be inquisitive and willing to learn new skills and expand your capabilities.
• Able to obtain Interim Secret level security clearance by your start date and ultimately obtain Top Secret level clearance.

Qualifications

• You meet our minimum qualifications if you...
• Have experience with MATLAB or another programming language such as C++.
• Have experience or coursework with aided inertial navigation error analysis or system development.
• Have experience or coursework with Kalman filtering.
• Hold an active Secret or higher-level clearance.