Research Fellow
University of Cambridge (UK) & EPFL (Switzerland)
Email: Sichao.Liu@mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk & sichao.liu@epfl.ch
Address: 15 Chaucer Rd, Cambridge CB2 7EF, UK & Station 9, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
Links: Google Scholar, ORCID
07/2025: A new review paper "Multimodal human-robot collaboration: advancements and future directions", was for publication at International Journal of Manufacturing Research.
07/2025: Two conference papers titled "Liaohe-CobotMagic-PnP: an Imitation Learning Dataset of Intelligent Robot for Industrial Applications " and "Transferring Vision-Language-Action Models to Industry Applications: Architectures, Performance, and Challenges", were accepted for the 7th International Conference on Industrial Artificial Intelligence, Aug 21-24, 2025, Shenyang, China.
07/2025: A new review paper 'Multi-robot collaboration: advancements, challenges, and future directions", was for publication at Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing.
06/2025: A new review paper Industrial Foundation Models (IFMs) for Intelligent Manufacturing: A Systematic Review ", was for publication at Journal of Manufacturing Systems.
05/2025: A new review paper 'Multi-robot collaboration: advancements, challenges, and future directions", Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing," was for publication at Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing.
04/2025: A new project with Meta via EPFL application channel was accepted, and I will lead and participate Meta Aria Project.
03/2025: A new paper 'Transfer learning and augmented data-driven parameter prediction for robotic welding," was for publication at Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing.
02/2025: A new paper, 'Vision intelligence-conditioned reinforcement learning for precision assembly,' was for publication at the CIRP Annals - Manufacturing Technology and presentation at the 74th CIRP General Assembly to be held in Stockholm, Sweden, 2025.
01/2025: Started at EPFL from the University of Cambridge.
11/2024: Received KTH International Travel Scholarship
10/2024: A new paper, 'Vision-Language-Conditioned Learning Policy for Robotic Manipulation', was for publication at the 8th Annual Conference on Robot Learning-Workshop on Language and Robot Learning: Language as Grounding, Munich.
08/2024: A new paper, 'Vision-language model-driven scene understanding and robotic object manipulation', was for publication at IEEE CASE 2024, Bari, Italy.
03/2024: A new paper 'Vision AI-based human-robot collaborative assembly driven by autonomous robots' was for publication at CIRP Annals - Manufacturing Technology and presentation at the 73rd CIRP General Assembly to be held inThessaloniki, Greece, 2024.
02/2024: A new paper, 'Safety-aware human-centric collaborative assembly', is published in Advanced Engineering Informatics.
01/2024: I joined "Introduction To Neuroimaging Methods" organised by the MRC Cognition and Brain Science, University of Cambridge.
11/2023: A new paper 'The marriage of operations research and reinforcement learning: integration of NEH into Q-learning algorithm for the permutation flowshop scheduling problem' submitted to Expert Systems with Applications.
09/2023: I participated COGNESTIC 2023 organised by the University of Cambridge, MRC Cognition and Brain Science, which is a two-week intensive cognitive neuroimaging skills training programe.
09/2023: our paper Skeleton-RGB integrated highly similar human action prediction in human-robot collaborative assembly is accepted by Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing.
07/2023: our paper Cognitive neuroscience and robotics: Advancements and future research directions is available online at Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing.
06/2023: I received a fund of Vetenskapsrådet (The Swedish Research Council), which supports me to work as a PI at the University of Cambridge and the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) for three years.
04/2023: Our paper Neural rendering-enabled 3D modeling for rapid digitization of in-service products has been accepted for publication at CIRP Annals - Manufacturing Technology and presentation at the 72nd CIRP General Assembly to be held in Dublin, Ireland, 2023.
02/2023: Our review paper Proactive human–robot collaboration: Mutual-cognitive, predictable, and self-organising perspectives has been accepted for publication at Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing
01/2023: I am employed as a Scientist in Robotics and AI-Vision at the Department of Robotics and Mechatronics, ABB Corporate Research Center in Sweden.
09/2022: I received the Government Award for Outstanding Students, in Sweden,2022.
08/2022: I presented our paper Digital twin-enabled advance execution for human-robot collaborative assembly published at CIRP Annals - Manufacturing Technology at the 71st CIRP General Assembly to be held in Bilbao, Spain, 2022.
06/2022: I am employed as a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Production Engineering, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, and supervised by Professor Lihui Wang.
05/2022: I successfully defended my PhD at KTH Royal Institute of Technology.
05/2022: My PhD defense is scheduled on the 20th May, 2022. The opponent will be Gunnar Bolmsjö, and and the committee members will be Magnus Wiktorsson, Minna Lanz, Kerstin Johansen, and Leo de Vin.
08/2021: Our paper Function block-based human-robot collaborative assembly driven by brainwaves has been accepted for publication at CIRP Annals - Manufacturing Technology and presentation at the 70th CIRP General Assembly to be held in Munich, Germany, 2021.
10/2020: I received Best Paper Award for high academic quality at the 2020 Swedish Production Symposium, in Jönköping, Sweden.
09/2020: I received Best Paper Award at the 2020 IFIP Conference on Advances in Production Management Systems, in Novi Sad, Serbia.
I am a research fellow of the Swedish Research Council, which granted me a three-year international fund. I work as a PI on AI4Robotics at the University of Cambridge (UK) and the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL, Switzerland). Prior to this position, I was a Scientist in Robotics, Control and AI-vision at the Department of Robotics and Mechatronics, ABB Corporate Research Center in Sweden since January 2023, and worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher at KTH Royal Institute of Technology (2022/06-2022/12). I hold a Doctoral degree in AI for Robotics (2022), a Master's in Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science (2017), and a Bachelor's degree in Mathematics and Statistics (2014). He mainly focuses on Neuroengineering, Vision AI/AI4Robotics, Large language models, Autonomous robot systems (AMR), and Foundation models.
My research aims at developing artifical intelligence algorithms and applications that enable robots and/or humans to complete high-level tasks/interactions in complex and dynamic environments. My research area includes but not limited to:
Vision AI/AI4Robotics
Autonomous robot systems (AMR)
Large language models and Foundation models
ROS1 & ROS2