About Me

I am a Ph.D. student major in Computer Science at UIC, where I am fortunate to be supervised by Prof. Wenhao Luo. Prior to that, I worked as a research assistant at UNC Charlotte. I completed my master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Dalian University of Technology(DUT), and obtained my bachelor’s degree from China University of Petroleum(UPC).

I am passionate about Robotics, Control theory, Computer Vision and Reinforcement Learning, and my goal is to empower the multi-robot system with intelligence(robust and interactive autonomy), which enables robots to make informed decisions for safely and effectively collaborating with each other and with humans in the physical world. Currently, I am conducting simulations and real-world verifications of multi-agent control systems, focusing on developing algorithms for large-scale mixed-autonomy coordination.

🔥 News

• [Jan. 2025] Our paper about Multi-robot Deadlock Resolution is accepted to ICRA’ 25.
• [Jan. 2025] Our paper about Sample-efficient Safe Reinforcement Learning is accepted to ICRA’ 25.
• [Nov. 2024] I will attend the Join the 5-Day Gen AI Intensive Course with Google.
• [Oct. 2024] Our project Turbo Trash obtained the 1st place in HACKTHON CLT 2024.
• [Sep. 2024] I will present our work about autonomous driving on ITSC 2024.
• [Jul. 2024] Our paper about Courteous Driving using CBF-inspired Risk is accepted to ITSC’ 24.
• [Jul. 2024] Our paper about Individualizable Risk Assessment is accepted to ITSC’ 24.
• [June. 2024] Our paper about Data-driven Connectivity Maintenance is accepted to IROS’ 24.
• [June. 2024] Our paper about Vehicle Longitudinal Motion Prediction is accepted to MECC’ 24.
• [May. 2024] Our paper about Line-of-Sight Connectivity Maintenance is accepted to RSS’24.
• [Jan. 2024] Our paper about Conformal Prediction is accepted to ACC’24.
• [Oct. 2023] I will present our work at MRS’23.
• [Oct. 2023] Our paper about multi-agent deadlock resolution is accepted to MRS’23.
• [Oct. 2023] Our paper about connectivity maintenance is accepted to MRS’23.
• [Sep. 2023] Our paper about connectivity maintenance is accepted to IROS’23 Workshop.
• [Mar. 2023] Our paper about Image-Based Visual Servoing is accepted to IFAC’23.

📝 Publications

Highlights

Adaptive Deadlock Avoidance for Decentralized Multi-Agent Systems via CBF-inspired Risk Measurement

Yanze Zhang, Yiwei Lyu, Siwon Jo, Yupeng Yang, Wenhao Luo

IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2025

Paper

• We present a novel decentralized framework that ensures both efficient task execution and deadlock resolution for multi-agent systems, which enables co-optimization between the task-related controller and deadlock resolution controller, yielding smoother robots’ motion with improved overall task execution efficiency

All Publications

• Adaptive Deadlock Avoidance for Decentralized Multi-Agent Systems via CBF-inspired Risk Measurement.
  Yanze Zhang, Yiwei Lyu, Siwon Jo, Yupeng Yang, and Wenhao Luo
  Accepted to the 2025 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA’ 25), 2025
  [PDF]

• Computation and Sample Efficient Safe Reinforcement Learning Using Adaptive Conformal Prediction.
  Hao Zhou, Yanze Zhang, and Wenhao Luo
  Accepted to the 2025 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA’ 25), 2025
  [PDF]

• Courteous MPC for Autonomous Driving with CBF-inspired Risk Assessment.
  Yanze Zhang, Yiwei Lyu, Sude Ela Demir, Xingyu Zhou, Yupeng Yang, Junmin Wang and Wenhao Luo
  Accepted to the 27th IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSC’ 24), 2024
  [PDF][Demo-NGSIM][Demo-IDM]

• Individualizable Risk Assessment Map for Planning Vehicle Behaviors Respecting Perceived Safety.
  Ji Hwan Park, Yanze Zhang, Wenaho Luo, and Junmin Wang
  Accepted to the 27th IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSC’ 24), 2024
  [PDF]

• Integrating Online Learning and Connectivity Maintenance for Communication-Aware Multi-Robot Coordination.
  Yupeng Yang, Yiwei Lyu, Yanze Zhang, Ian Gao, and Wenhao Luo
  Accepted to the 2024 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS’ 24), 2024
  [PDF][Project][Website]

• A Transitional Intelligent Driver Model Enabling Vehicle Longitudinal Motion Prediction in Lane-Change Maneuvers.
  Sude E. Demir, Xingyu Zhou, Yanze Zhang, Wenhao Luo, and Junmin Wang
  Accepted to the 4th Modeling, Estimation, and Control Conference (MECC’ 24), 2024
  [PDF]

• Decentralized Multi-Robot Line-of-Sight Connectivity Maintenance under Uncertainty.
  Yupeng Yang, Yiwei Lyu, Yanze Zhang, Sha Yi, and Wenhao Luo
  Accepted to the 2024 Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS’24), 2024
  [PDF][Video]

• Safety-Critical Control with Uncertainty Quantification using Adaptive Conformal Prediction.
  Hao Zhou, Yanze Zhang, and Wenhao Luo
  Accepted to the 2024 American Control Conference (ACC’24), 2024
  [PDF]

• Occlusion-Free Image Based Visual Servoing Using Probabilistic Control Barrier Certificates.
  Yanze Zhang, Yupeng Yang, Wenhao Luo
  Accepted to appear in the 22th World Congress of International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC’23), 2023
  [PDF][Slides]

🎖 Honors and Awards

• 2023.06 Conference Travel Award from the Graduate School of UNC Charlotte.

📖 Education

• 2022.08 - Now, Doctor of Philosophy, Computer Science, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, The United States
• 2019.09 - 2022.06, Master of Engineering, Mechanical Design and Theory, Dalian University of Technology, China
• 2015.09 - 2019.06, Bachelor of Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, China University of Petroleum, China

📚 Services

External Reviewer

• 12th IFAC Symposium on Intelligent Autonomous Vehicles (IAV’ 25)
• IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA’ 25)
• International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC’23)

Mentoring Activities

• Ian Gao, Bachelor Research Project. Now at UNC Chaphill as an undergraduate.
• John Modl, REU Program.
• Matthew De La Rosa, REU Program.
• Andrew Chen, REU Program. Now at CMU as a Master student.
• Zachary Palko, REU Program.
• Siwon Jo, Bachelor Research Project.
• Mukul Mohan, Bachelor Research Project.