Chao Liu

Chao Liu

Postdoctoral Associate

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Biography

I am currently a Postdoctoral Associate at MIT CSAIL working with Professor Daniela Rus. I obtained my Ph.D. degree from the University of Pennsylvania advised by Professor Mark Yim (ModLab (Modular Robotics Lab in GRASP Lab) ). My PhD thesis is about modular robotics, control, and motion planning. I was mainly working on two self-reconfigurable modular robots: SMORES-EP and Variable Topology Truss . I am currently working on multimodal sensing for robotics manipulation and soft robot design and control.

Interests
  • Modular Robotics
  • Soft Robotics
  • Control
  • Motion Planning
  • Grasping and Manipulation
  • Multimodal Sensing
Education

  • PhD in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics, 2021

    University of Pennsylvania

  • MS in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics, 2014

    University of Pennsylvania

  • BS in Mechanical Engineering and Automation, 2012

    Dalian Jiaotong University

Projects

ActionNet

ActionNet

A multimodal dataset for human activities

Manipulation in Real-Time

Manipulation in Real-Time

Control and planning for dexterous manipulation in real-time.

SMORES-EP

SMORES-EP

SMORES-EP, a hybrid modular robotic system.

Variable Topology Truss

Variable Topology Truss

Variable Topology Truss robots are self-reconfigurable truss robots.

Aerial Manipulation

Aerial Manipulation

A novel manipulator for aerial manipulation.

Publications

Chao Liu, Qian Lin, Hyun Kim, Mark Yim (2022). SMORES-EP, a Modular Robot with Parallel Self-assembly. Autonomous Robots.

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Joseph DelPreto, Chao Liu, Yiyue Luo, Michael Foshey, Yunzhu Li, Antonio Torralba, Wojciech Matusik, Daniela Rus (2022). ActionNet: A Multimodal Dataset for Human Activities Using Wearable Sensors in a Kitchen Environment. 36th Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS 2022) Track on Datasets and Benchmarks.

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Chao Liu, Sencheng Yu, Mark Yim (2022). Motion Planning for Variable Topology Trusses: Reconfiguration and Locomotion. IEEE Transactions on Robotics (Accepted).

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Chao Liu, Tarik Tosun, Mark Yim (2021). A Low-Cost, Highly Customizable Solution for Position Estimation in Modular Robots. Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics.

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Chao Liu, Mark Yim (2021). A Quadratic Programming Approach to Manipulation in Real-Time Using Modular Robots. The International Journal of Robotic Computing (Invited).

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Chao Liu, Mark Yim (2020). A Quadratic Programming Approach to Modular Robot Control and Motion Planning. 2020 Fourth IEEE International Conference on Robotic Computing (IRC).

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Chao Liu, Sencheng Yu, Mark Yim (2020). Motion Planning for Variable Topology Truss Modular Robot. Proceedings of Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS).

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Chao Liu, Sencheng Yu, Mark Yim (2020). A Fast Configuration Space Algorithm for Variable Topology Truss Modular Robots. 2020 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA).

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Chao Liu, Qian Lin, Hyun Kim, Mark Yim (2020). Parallel Self-assembly with SMORES-EP, a Modular Robot. 2020 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) (Accepted).

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Chao Liu, Mark Yim (2019). Reconfiguration Motion Planning for Variable Topology Truss. 2019 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS).

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Chao Liu, Abhraneel Bera, Thulani Tsabedze, Daniel Edgar, Mark Yim (2019). Spiral Zipper Manipulator for Aerial Grasping and Manipulation. 2019 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS).

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Chao Liu, Michael Whitzer, Mark Yim (2019). A Distributed Reconfiguration Planning Algorithm for Modular Robots. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters.

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Chao Liu, Sencheng Yu, Mark Yim (2019). Shape Morphing for Variable Topology Truss. 2019 16th International Conference on Ubiquitous Robots (UR).

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Chad C. Kessens, Matthew Horowitz, Chao Liu, James Dotterweich, Mark Yim, Harris L. Edge (2019). Toward Lateral Aerial Grasping Manipulation Using Scalable Suction. 2019 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA).

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Chao Liu, Mark Yim (2017). Configuration Recognition with Distributed Information for Modular Robots. IFRR International Symposium on Robotics Research (ISRR).

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Tarik Tosun, Daniel Edgar, Chao Liu, Thulani Tsabedze, Mark Yim (2017). PaintPots: Low Cost, Accurate, Highly Customizable Potentiometers for Position Sensing. 2017 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA).

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Tarik Tosun, Jay Davey, Chao Liu, Mark Yim (2016). Design and Characterization of the EP-Face Connector. 2016 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS).

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