Boling Yang
Roboticist / Graduate Researcher
I am on the job market for industrial research and development positions!
Sensor Systems Lab + Robot Learning Lab
Contact: bolingy@cs.uw.edu
CV | Google Scholar | YouTube
I am a CSE Ph.D. candidate co-advised by Prof. Joshua Smith and Prof. Byron Boots at the University of Washington. I enjoy researching how real robots can achieve challenging control and decision-making tasks, such as solving Rubik's cube, playing competitive games with humans, and manipulating millimeter-scale objects. Since robotics is an interdisciplinary science, I believe we can find better solutions for robotic problems if we think about them from diverse perspectives. Therefore, my past research has covered a wide range of topics, including reinforcement learning, multi-agent systems, robot sensing, novel manipulator, etc. I am also a part-time researcher at Microsoft Research.
Global Media Coverage:
Selected Research Projects
Multi-agent Reinforcement Learning
Robots innovate useful skills by playing games.
Stackelberg Games for Learning Emergent Behaviors During Competitive Autocurricula
Boling Yang, Liyuan Zheng, Lillian J. Ratliff, Byron Boots, Joshua R. Smith
The IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2023
Stackelberg MADDPG: Learning Emergent Behaviors via Information Asymmetry in Competitive Games
Boling Yang*, Liyuan Zheng*, Lillian J. Ratliff, Byron Boots, Joshua R. Smith
AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence 2022 - Workshop on Reinforcement Learning in Games
Do we need a robot competitor?
Motivating Physical Activity via Competitive Human-Robot Interaction
Boling Yang, Golnaz Habibi, Patrick E. Lancaster, Byron Boots, Joshua R. Smith
The Conference on Robot Learning (CoRL) 2021 [Selected for Oral Presentation (Top 6.5%)]
Competitive Physical Human-Robot Game Play
Boling Yang, Xiangyu Xie, Golnaz Habibi, Joshua R. Smith
ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction 2021 LBR [Covered by IEEE Spectrum and b<>com News]
Robot Manipulation
A robot that organizes our Amazon packages.
This is the flagship research program of the UW x Amazon Science Hub with joint research efforts from multiple robotics groups at UW CSE. We have multiple ongoing research projects, stay tuned for the latest update!
(We presented our system to Senator Murray on Aug/9/2023!)
DYNAMO-GRASP: DYNAMics-aware Optimization for GRASP Point Detection in Suction Grippers
Boling Yang*, Soofiyan Layakalli Atar*, Markus Grotz, Byron Boots, Joshua Smith
The Conference on Robot Learning (CoRL) 2023
Towards Robustly Picking Unseen Objects from Densely Packed Shelves
Markus Grotz, Soofiyan Atar, Yi Li, Paolo Torrado, Boling Yang, Nick Walker, Michael Murray, Maya Cakmak and Joshua R. Smith
Preprint
Hierarchical Control Strategy for Moving A Robot Manipulator Between Small Containers
Paolo Torrado, Boling Yang, Joshua R. Smith
The IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) 2022, Workshop on the role of uncertainty and how it is tackled in robotic grasping and manipulation.
A Rubik's cube competition for robots.
Benchmarking Robot Manipulation with the Rubik's Cube
Boling Yang, Patrick E. Lancaster, Siddhartha S. Srinivasa, Joshua R. Smith
IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L) 2020 [Covered by Tech Xplore, COSMOS Magazine, and Penang STEM 4.0]
Novel Manipulator
Allowing any general purpose robots to pick up a mosquito without crashing it.
Contact-less Manipulation of Millimeter-scale Objects via Ultrasonic Levitation
Jarred Nakahara, Boling Yang, Joshua R. Smith
IEEE International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics 2020 (BioRob) [Patented Technology: US Patent, PCT International Patent]
Novel Sensing
Deep learning for better pre-touch sensing.
Improved Object Pose Estimation via Deep Pre-touch Sensing
Patrick E. Lancaster, Boling Yang, Joshua R. Smith
The IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) 2017
A new sensor that keeps manipulation error within a few millimeters.
Pre-touch Sensing for Sequential Manipulation
Boling Yang, Patrick E. Lancaster, Joshua R. Smith
The IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2017 [Covered by BBC Radio 4 - Today Morning Boardcast]