Working Student – Perception/Computer Vision

About the Position

Working Student – Perception/Computer Vision

Maple Aviation is an innovative aerospace startup seeking a Working Student in Perception/Computer Vision for our Drone and Delivery System. Our ambition is to create a highly efficient, autonomous drone platform for medical delivery applications.

About the Role

In this role, you will support the development of the system's visual perception: tracking, 3D geometry, and the algorithms that let the drone understand its surroundings, precisely recognize landing points, and navigate reliably even under difficult conditions (weak GNSS, changing light, vibration). You will work closely with the founders, engineering team, flight test, avionics, and our certification partners to ensure perception works seamlessly with flight control, safety architecture, and operational requirements as one reliable system.

Responsibilities

• Precision Landing & Marker Tracking: Develop and improve marker-based landing methods (e.g. ArUco/AprilTag) for precise, autonomous landing on hospital landing pads.
• GNSS-Denied Navigation: Build robust state estimation and visual odometry for flight phases with weak or degraded GNSS signal - e.g. in hospital courtyards or between buildings.
• Object Detection & 3D Perception: Build object-detection and 3D-geometry pipelines (mono/stereo camera, depth estimation) for obstacle and environment awareness.
• Sensor Fusion & Calibration: Fuse camera, IMU, and other sensor data into reliable pose and uncertainty estimates; support intrinsic/extrinsic calibration and diagnose sync and timing issues.
• Edge Deployment: Optimize the perception pipeline for onboard compute on an NVIDIA Jetson under real-world resource and power constraints.
• Validation & Field Testing: Build test and regression pipelines from flight data; debug real mission logs down to root cause.
• Integration: Work closely with flight control and hardware to make perception outputs reliable and explainable within overall flight operations.

Requirements

• Currently pursuing a Bachelor's or Master's degree in Robotics, Computer Vision, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Aerospace Engineering, or a related technical field. Hands-on experience is highly welcome.
• Solid foundations in 3D geometry, linear algebra, probability, and estimation theory.
• Practical experience in at least two of: VIO, SLAM, object detection, marker-based tracking, or sensor fusion.
• Comfortable with C++ and/or Python; experience with Linux-based systems.
• Experience with NVIDIA Jetson or other edge hardware, CUDA.
• Experience with ArUco/AprilTag, multi-camera rigs, fisheye/wide-angle lenses, or monocular depth estimation.
• Experience with ROS/ROS2, MAVLink, Px4, OpenCV, Eigen, or PCL.
• Structured, iterative approach; you fix root causes rather than patch symptoms.
• Fluent English; German is a plus.

We Offer

We offer the opportunity to work hands-on on a breakthrough drone aircraft and delivery system at a decisive stage of company growth. If you are passionate about aircraft engineering, autonomous systems, and building real products that fly, we would love to hear from you.

Benefits

• Wellpass (Fitness, Wellness, Sports)
• JobRad (Bike Leasing)
• Team Events

About the Company

Maple Aviation designs and operates autonomous cargo drones for time-critical medical logistics. The Maple Octave delivery system is fully certified, emission-free, and engineered for the highest safety standards demanded by hospitals, laboratories, and healthcare networks.

Location: Ottobrunn, Germany

Contact:

Maple Aviation GmbH

Maria-Merian-Str. 2

85521 Ottobrunn

Germany