Research

Research Assistant

• Implemented a sum-of-squares trajectory optimization for quadrotors based on the application of safe flight corridors directly generated on point clouds.
• Proposed a systematic (re)planning framework that considers estimated external forces on quadrotors. Developed an online nonlinear model predictive control with safe ellipsoid boundaries constrained in a safe flight corridor to enforce reliable obstacle avoidance.
• Research on whole-body safe trajectory generation for autonomous vehicles in the urban traffic environment. The back-end optimization is based on a differential-flat system while encodes dynamic obstacles avoidance with surrounding vehicles. (To submit to IEEE Transactions on Robotics (T-RO) as the first author, in progress)

Publications

External Forces Resilient Safe Motion Planning for Quadrotor, Yuwei Wu, Ziming Ding, Chao Xu, and Fei Gao, IEEE Robotics and Automation Letter (RA-L). preprint, video
Generating Large Convex Polytopes Directly on Point Clouds, Xingguang Zhong, Yuwei Wu, Dong Wang, Qianhao Wang, Chao Xu, and Fei Gao. preprint, video

UPennalizers R&D Co-Lead

• Improved robot detection for Nao robots considered occlusion and lighting variance based on Tiny-Yolo.
• Implemented faster line detection and improved field detection of RANSAC and Convex Hull filtering.

Undergraduate Research Assistant

• Research on high-speed railway EMU circulation plan optimization. Designed an extended ALNS algorithm for route planning problems (bi-level optimization) to improve the efficiency and resources utilization of high-speed railway systems

Undergraduate Physicists' Program

• Implemented experiments to analyze the chaotic phase synchronization of coupled metronome systems
• Won the Second Prize of the 8th China Undergraduate Physicists' Tournament
• Won the First Prize of the 10th Undergraduate Physical Experiment Competition of Beijing
• Awarded the Science Innovative Talent by the School of Science

Projects

Reinforcement Learning for F1/10 Autonomous Racing

• Generated a series of offline B-spline global candidate paths for calculating further possible collision with LIDAR scans of the environment.
• Implemented a trajectory planning strategy for F1/10 racing cars based on soft double Q-Learning for lane choosing and switching.

Systematic Optimization of Reservation for Shipping Containers

• Improved a hybrid heuristic algorithm for the logistics and distribution of shipping containers and developed an Android application for users’ reservation of containers.

Traffic Signal Coordination Control and Green Wave Optimization for Arterials

• Modeled the traffic network distribution and Implemented multiple traffic signal control scenarios for Beijing arterials.
• Simulated and optimized the timing for unparallel flow at intersections in Vissim and Synchro.

Cellular Automaton based on Neural Network of Pedestrian-vehicle Simulation in Two-line Model

• Built a mixed traffic flow model in matlab to simulate two-line roads considering real-world complex situations.

Work Experience

Teaching Assistant

• MEAM 620 Advanced Robotics
• ESE 542 Statistics for Data Science
• MEAM 520 Introduction to Robotics

Software Engineer for Stewart Platform

• In order to realize the Joplin Project by Prof.Michelle Lopez, I worked with other two graduate students from mechanical engineering to validate the "fluid" movement planning code on arduino and evaluate the overall systems.

Data Quality Assurance

• Built tools for verification of updated data with different sources, discovery of data inconsistency and correction in USAFacts

Self-Driving Algorithm Engineer Intern

• Improved a multiple objects assignment algorithm for tracking trajectories
• Developed an evaluation tool for performance of different MOT methods with leak detection on daily logs
• Implemented feature analysis on point cloud to repair errors on parameters and keep consistence of object IDs

Rewards

• First Prize of the 8th Undergraduate Mathematics Competition of China (2016)
• First Prize of the 33rd Undergraduate Physical Competition in Parts of China (2016)
• Second Prize of the 8th China Undergraduate Physicists' Tournament (2017)
• First Prize of the 10th Undergraduate Physical Experiment Competition of Beijing (2017)
• Second Prize of the 7th Transportation Technique Competition of Beijing (2017)
• Third Prize of the 5th Logistic Design Competition of Beijing (2017)
• Honorable Mention of 2018 Mathematical Contest in Modeling Certificate of Achievement (2017)

Skills

• Languages: Python, C/C++, Matlab, JavaScript, HTML/CSS
• Tools: ROS, Git, Linux, Docker, VS Code
• Simulations: Gazebo, Airsim, Carla, Synchro, Vissim