Research Intern: Semantic-Aware Interaction and Behavior Planning for Autonomous Driving - Honda Research Institute USA

Research Intern: Semantic-Aware Interaction and Behavior Planning for Autonomous Driving

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Research Intern: Semantic-Aware Interaction and Behavior Planning for Autonomous Driving

Job Number: P25INT-56
​Honda Research Institute USA (HRI-US) is seeking a research intern to develop semantic-aware interaction and behavior planning methods for autonomous driving. The intern will investigate how scene context, agent intent, interaction information, and semantic relationships can be used to make higher-level driving decisions such as when to proceed, yield, wait, reroute, or adapt to other road users. The developed methods will integrate with HRI’s existing real-time navigation and motion-planning stack and will be evaluated in challenging low-speed autonomous-driving and parking scenarios.
Mountain View, CA

 

Key Responsibilities

 
  • Conduct research on semantic-aware behavior planning and interaction-aware decision making for autonomous driving.
  • Develop methods that use scene context, agent intent, interaction relationships, and uncertainty to make high-level driving decisions.
  • Investigate representations such as semantic features, scene/interaction graphs, multi-hypothesis agent behaviors, or learned behavior models.
  • Develop decision-making strategies for interactions such as yielding, passing order, waiting, rerouting, and conflict resolution.
  • Integrate developed methods with existing HRI navigation and motion-planning algorithms.
  • Train and evaluate methods using simulation and real-world driving datasets.
  • Evaluate both algorithm-level performance and impact on closed-loop autonomous-driving behavior.
  • Collaborate with HRI researchers and contribute toward technical publications and system demonstrations.

 

Minimum Qualifications

 
  • Ph.D. candidate in Robotics, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or a related field.
  • Strong background in at least one of the following: behavior planning, motion planning, decision making, reinforcement learning, autonomous driving, or multi-agent systems.
  • Experience developing and evaluating algorithms for robotics or autonomous systems.
  • Programming proficiency in Python and/or C++.
  • Familiarity with machine learning frameworks such as PyTorch or TensorFlow.
  • Ability to conduct independent research and prototype solutions.

 

Bonus Qualifications​

  • ​Experience with interaction-aware planning, behavior planning, or decision making for autonomous vehicles or mobile robots.
  • Experience with numerical optimization and optimization-based planning, including familiarity with QP/NLP solvers or tools such as IPOPT, CasADi, or similar.
  • Familiarity with intent prediction, trajectory prediction, semantic reasoning, or scene understanding.
  • Experience with methods such as reinforcement learning, graph-based representations, or uncertainty-aware planning.
  • Experience integrating learning-based or decision-making algorithms with downstream motion planners.
  • Experience with ROS/ROS2 and autonomous-driving or robotics simulation environments.
  • Experience working with real-world autonomous-driving datasets and closed-loop evaluation.
  • Experience implementing algorithms on a real robotic or autonomous vehicle platform is a plus.
  • Prior research publications in robotics, autonomous driving, machine learning, or related areas are a plus.

 

Years of Work Experience Required   0
Desired Start Date  1/11/2027
Internship Duration  3 Months
Position Keywords  Autonomous Driving, Robotics, Behavior and Motion Planning 

Alternate Way to Apply

Send an e-mail to careers@honda-ri.com with the following:
- Subject line including the job number(s) you are applying for 
- Recent CV 
- A cover letter highlighting relevant background (Optional)

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