About

I am a PhD candidate of Robotics Department at University of Michigan (UMich), where I work on legged robot control and learning with professor Yanran Ding and previously collaborated with Dr. Maani Ghaffari and Dr. Elena Shrestha. Prior to that, I received my bachelor degree from Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech), majoring in Robotics Engineering. Advised by professor Wei Zhang, I had a great research experience on MPC and RL of quadruped robots.

I am particularly interested in agile legged locomotion in dynamic environments, with a focus on control and learning methods, and proficient in developing efficient and deployable robotic algorithms. When I'm not immersed in technology, you can find me swimming or playing badminton.

News

May 2025	Presented my work at ICRA 2025 in Atlanta, GA.
May 2025	Successfully passed the qualifying exam and advanced to candidacy.
Jan. 2025	One paper has been accepted to ICRA 2025.
Apr. 2024	Started my PhD journey in ARCAD Lab.

Experience

	Graduate Student Research Assistant May 2024 - Present, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, US
	Software Engineer Intern on Motion Planning May 2023 - Aug. 2023, PlusAI Inc., Santa Clara, CA, US
	Research Intern Jun. 2021 - Jul. 2021, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

Selected Projects

Hierarchical RL for MPC of Quadruped Locomotion [ Code ] [ Slides ] [ Parallel Training ] Fast simulation and RL training framework for a quadruped locomotion task by dynamically predicting the weight parameters of a MPC controller. The control framework is a hierarchical controller composed of a higher-level policy network and a lower-level model predictive controller.

Motion Planning Practice [ Code ] [ PDF ] Fast motion planning algorithm implementations with planar hovercraft and 7-DOF KUKA arm demos in pybullet. Algorithms including Kinodynamic RRT-Connect, RRT-Connect, A*, Iterative IK, lazy-rebuilt KD-Tree and more. Code optimized for readability and efficiency.

Bayesian Optimization for MPPI Planar Pushing [ Code ] [ PDF ] [ BOA ] Self implemented Bayesian Optimization Algorithm (BOA) in PyTorch for automatically tuning the hyperparameter of Model Predictive Path Integral (MPPI) control to solve a planar box pushing task with non-trivial obstacles.

Dynamic Object Removing SLAM with MonoRec [ Code ] [ PDF ] [ System Diagram ] We present a dynamic object removing SLAM method named MonoRec-SLAM. Our method adapts the MaskModule from MonoRec and achieves an average APE improvement by 6.03% on KITTI dataset, obtains a more static map of the scenes, and achieves a great balance between real-time capability and dynamic object masking.

Single-Image to Camera Pose with iNeRF and PoseCNN [ Code ] [ PDF ] [ System Diagram ] We present an efficient and robust system for view synthesis and pose estimation by integrating PoseCNN and iNeRF. Our method leverages the pose and object segmentation predictions from PoseCNN to improve the initial camera pose estimation and accelerate the optimization process in iNeRF.

Autonomous SLAM and Exploration with MBot [ Code ] [ PDF ] In the Botlab, movement control, obstacle detection, maze exploration, and self-localization functionality was developed on the MBot robot, a mobile robot platform. It is designed to explore the fundamentals of robot autonomy by developing MBot with autonomous mapping, localization, and exploration capabilities. Winner among 24 teams in the final competition.

Robust Detecting and Palletizing with Robot Arm [ Code ] [ CV PDF ] [ Control PDF ] In the Armlab, a 5-DOF robotic arm fully autonomously arranges blocks of different sizes, colors and positions into the desired arrangement. Analytical inverse kinematics is used to determine the appropriate waypoints. An overhead LiDAR Camera is utilized to identify blocks on the board. Winner among 24 teams in the final competition.

Agile Waste Sorting with Tossing [ Code ] [ PDF ] Implemented the automatic collection and cleaning of images based on MOG2 algorithm. Deployed and trained YOLOv5 to achieve quick waste classification. Achieved planning for robot arm to pick toss waste on dynamic conveyor belt.

Education

	University of Michigan, US Aug. 2024 - Present, Ph.D. in Robotics
	University of Michigan, US Aug. 2022 - May 2024, Master of Science in Robotics
	Southern University of Science and Technology, China Sep. 2018 - Jun. 2022, Bachelor of Engineering in Robotics