Research Interest

I am broadly interested in robotics, especially in legged robots. My research focuses on issues relevant to mechanism design and dexterous movement in both serial and parallel robots, including kinematics and redundancy resolution, dynamic modelling and parameter identification, operational space control and manipulation, optimization-based control and trajectory optimization.

News

• I started a new role at Dalian University of Technology, serving as an Associate Professor. Dalian is a beautiful coastal city on the northeast of China. - 01/11/2021

• I started to serve as an Associate Editor for RA-L from 19/9/2021.

• A paper submitted to RA-L "A Unified Model with Inertia Shaping for Highly Dynamic Jumps of Legged Robots". - 09/09/2021

• An evolved paper titled "Choosing Stiffness and Damping for Optimal Impedance Planning" from an IROS 2019 paper has been submitted to TR-O. - 12/04/2021

• A paper published by RA-L: "Robust Footstep Planning and LQR Control for Dynamic Quadrupedal Locomotion". The accompanying video is available (link). - 12/04/2021

• A paper published by CASE 2020: "Variable Autonomy of Whole-body Control for Inspection and Intervention in Industrial Environments using Legged Robots" - 11/10/2020

• A journal paper published on Frontiers in Robotics and AI: "An optimization-based locomotion controller for quadruped robots leveraging Cartesian impedance control" - 19/03/2020

This paper is an improvement of our previous Xin-ICRA2018 for locomotion control. The improved controller can handle extremely slippery and steep terrains. I am trying to make the controller to be open source.

• A paper published by ICRA 2020: "Bounded haptic teleoperation of a quadruped robot’s foot posture for sensing and manipulation" - 1/10/2020

In this paper we proposed a whole-body controller that is an extension of our previous locomotion controller published in ICRA 2018 to handle manipulation. The advantage is that our impedance controller can be used as a contact force estimator for haptic feedback. The source code will be released later, and in the meantime please read the paper (link) or watch the video: (link).

Research Experience

• Nov. 2021 up to present Associate Professor, Dalian University of Technology

• May 2018 - Oct. 2021 Postdoctoral Research Associate in Michael Mistry research group at the School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh

• Sep. 2016 - Sep. 2017 Visiting PhD research student at the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics, University of Edinburgh

• Sep. 2012 - Apr. 2018 Research assistant at the State Key Laboratory of High-Performance Complex Manufacturing, Central South University

Education

• Sep. 2012 - Apr. 2018 Ph.D in Mechanical Engineering School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Central South University

• Sep. 2008 - Jun. 2012 B.S. in Mechanical Engineering School of Mechanical Engineering and Electronic Information, China University of Geosciences

Publication

Google Scholar

Academic Activities

• Member of IEEE Robotics and Automation Society

• Editorial board member of journals: RA-L, Frontiers in Mechanical Engineering

• Review service for: Autonomous Robots, RA-L, RSS, ICRA, IROS, CASE, Nonlinear Dynamics, Robotica, International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, Mathematical Problems in Engineering