Application Technology Architect – Drone & UAV Applications

Job Description We are looking for an experienced and visionary System Architect to serve as Renesas' global technical leader for Drone and UAV applications. This individual will define and drive end-to-end system architectures for next-generation UAV platforms while identifying emerging market opportunities, shaping solution roadmaps, and promoting differentiated semiconductor and software solutions.

You will act as the primary technical authority for Drone & UAV applications, bridging customer requirements, ecosystem needs, aviation regulations, and semiconductor product engineering. Beyond architecture definition, you will help guide solution strategy, ecosystem engagement, reference platform development, and semiconductor adoption across industrial, commercial and defense UAV markets.

Key Responsibilities Define and own end-to-end system architectures for industrial and/or defense drone and UAV applications, covering flight control, mission computing, sensing, propulsion, power, connectivity, and ground-control interfaces. Translate customer use cases and mission requirements into system, hardware, software, performance, safety, security, and interface requirements. Drive HW/SW partitioning across MCUs, MPUs/SoCs, AI accelerators, programmable logic, sensors, connectivity devices, power electronics, and actuators.

Define architectures for flight control, sensor fusion, navigation, positioning, stabilization, autonomous mission execution, obstacle detection, and collision avoidance. Specify and integrate sensing solutions such as IMUs, GNSS/RTK, cameras, radar, LiDAR, ultrasonic sensors, barometric sensors, and environmental sensors. Define compute architectures for edge AI, computer vision, visual-inertial odometry, SLAM, object detection, tracking, and autonomous decision-making.

Develop robust communication architectures covering command and control, telemetry, payload data, remote identification, vehicle-to-vehicle links, cloud connectivity, and ground-control systems. Define power and propulsion architectures, including battery management, power conversion and distribution, motor control, energy optimization, thermal management, and fault monitoring. Ensure safety, reliability, cybersecurity, redundancy, fault containment, degraded-operation modes, and fail-safe behaviors are designed into the system architecture.

Collaborate closely with Product Groups, system architects, hardware, software, AI, connectivity, power, motor-control, security, and validation teams to deliver cohesive semiconductor-based solutions. Support product definition and roadmaps by identifying UAV system requirements, technology gaps, architectural trade-offs, and opportunities for differentiated semiconductor and software solutions. Guide and review system design, implementation, integration, verification, validation, and flight-test activities across the development lifecycle.

Engage with drone OEMs, technology partners, research institutes, and ecosystem providers to understand requirements, support architecture discussions, and accelerate design-in activities. Support customer engagements by explaining system concepts, design choices, performance trade-offs, integration guidelines, and reference solution capabilities. Monitor market trends, evolving regulations, emerging technologies, and competitive solutions, and translate insights into application strategies and architectures.

Influence product and technology roadmaps by translating evolving UAV market requirements into strategic semiconductor investment opportunities. Contribute to reference architectures, evaluation platforms, proofs of concept, application notes, and reusable solution building blocks for multiple UAV platforms. Provide technical mentoring, design reviews, and domain guidance to internal engineering, application, field, and product teams.

Qualifications Master’s or Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Computer Engineering, Robotics, Mechatr