Internship – AI Autonomy & Perception Systems

Job Description

About the Company:

Company Name: Deca Defense
Job Title: Internship – AI Autonomy & Perception Systems
Location: Remote
Employment Type: Unpaid Internship (25 hours per week)
ITAR Restriction: Exclusively open to U.S. citizens due to International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) compliance.

Deca Defense is a specialized company that exclusively serves Defense OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) and the DoD (Department of Defense). Their core expertise lies in Edge AI and autonomous systems engineering. Their mission is explicitly defined: to eliminate warfighter pain points by developing custom autonomous solutions that directly resolve critical field challenges. They achieve this by integrating advanced autonomy with embedded AI to deliver precise, mission-critical solutions directly at the tactical edge.

What distinguishes Deca Defense is its team, primarily comprised of veterans who have transitioned from battlefield experience to critical roles within the company. These individuals contribute invaluable real-world insights from their diverse deployments, directly informing the solutions they develop. Unlike other companies that might focus on “one-size-fits-all, vendor-locked black-box solutions” designed for demos, Deca Defense is committed to engineering autonomous systems that excel in the field, where mission success is paramount.

Job Description (Detailed):

Position Overview:

Deca Defense is seeking a highly motivated and technically skilled intern with a strong focus on Computer Vision and Perception Systems. This unpaid internship offers a hands-on opportunity to contribute to their AI-driven autonomous systems projects. The role involves developing real-time perception pipelines, sensor fusion modules, and embedded computer vision algorithms for mission-critical defense platforms. The ideal candidate will possess strong foundational knowledge in computer vision, image processing, and machine learning, coupled with a keen interest in deploying perception capabilities on edge devices. The intern will work closely with experienced engineers dedicated to enhancing situational awareness and autonomy within complex tactical environments.

Key Learning Opportunities and Responsibilities:

• Perception Pipeline Development: Design and implement real-time visual perception modules for tasks such as object detection, tracking, and semantic segmentation.
• Sensor Fusion: Integrate data from multiple sensor modalities, including RGB, IR (Infrared), LiDAR, and radar, to enhance perception accuracy and environmental understanding.
• Embedded Vision: Optimize and deploy vision algorithms on resource-constrained edge platforms, utilizing tools like TensorRT, OpenCV, and ONNX.
• SLAM & Localization: Support the development of visual-inertial odometry and SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) components crucial for GPS-denied navigation.
• Data Curation & Annotation: Assist in the generation, labeling, and preprocessing of datasets essential for AI model training.
• AI Model Training & Evaluation: Train, validate, and refine deep learning models (e.g., CNNs, transformers) specifically for perception tasks.
• Simulation & Testing: Utilize Unreal Engine to simulate real-world conditions and rigorously test perception stacks.

Preferred Qualifications and Learning Objectives:

• Educational Background: Currently pursuing or recently completed a degree in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a closely related field.
• Computer Vision Expertise: A solid understanding of image processing, feature extraction, and various deep learning architectures relevant to visual tasks.
• Embedded Development: Familiarity with deploying inference models on embedded hardware platforms (e.g., Jetson, Coral).
• Python & C++ Proficiency: Comfortable with rapid prototyping in Python and writing performance-critical code in C++.
• Sensor Fusion Techniques: Exposure to concepts such as Kalman Filters, Bayesian fusion, or spatiotemporal filtering across multiple sensors.
• Simulation Tools: Hands-on experience with simulation environments like AirSim, Gazebo, or Unreal Engine is considered a plus.
• Perception Frameworks: Experience with frameworks such as ROS (Robot Operating System), OpenCV, PyTorch, or TensorFlow for building perception modules.
• AI & Learning Systems: Understanding of supervised and unsupervised learning for perception, with bonus points for exposure to reinforcement learning.

Why Join Deca Defense:

This internship offers a unique opportunity to join a team of seasoned veterans who have successfully transitioned from field operations to the forefront of autonomy development. Interns will gain direct insight into how autonomous solutions are engineered to directly impact mission success at the tactical edge. This is a rare chance to contribute to systems that truly matter, combining rigorous engineering with critical mission relevance. You will build capabilities that not only look impressive on paper but prove their effectiveness in the field. Deca Defense prioritizes intern growth, offering technical mentorship and providing invaluable real-world context for engineering journeys, moving beyond academic theory to solve practical problems for actual operators in real missions.