Ji Zhang, Ph.D.
Systems Scientist
Research: Navigation, Mapping, Localization,
Planning, Exploration
Address: 5000 Forbes Ave, NSH #2215
Pittsburgh, PA, 15213
Email: zhangji@cmu.edu
My research interests are in robotic navigation, spanning localization, mapping, planning, and exploration. My early work on Lidar Odometry and Mapping (LOAM) and the succeeding work leveraging range, vision, and inertial sensing opened up real-time 3D Lidar SLAM. My work ranked #1 on the odometry leaderboard of KITTI Vision Benchmark between 2014 and 2021. I founded Kaarta, Inc, a CMU spin-off commercializing 3D mapping & modeling technologies, and stayed with the company for 4 years as chief scientist. In late 2019, I rejoined CMU as a faculty member and started leading the development of a series of autonomous navigation algorithms. The complete navigation system brought the CMU-OSU Team a "Most Sectors Explored Award" on DARPA Subterranean Challenge, conducting the most complete exploration among all teams.
Curriculum Vitae (CV).
Our work on autonomous exploration won Best Paper Award and Best System Paper Award of RSS 2021! The first time that one paper won both awards in the history of RSS.
I recently worked on enabling lightweight aerial vehicles to fly in unknown, complex environments at high speeds. The latest work is featured by ArduPilot - Autonomous Vehicle Collision Avoidance.
Selected Publications
J. Zhang and S. Singh. Laser-visual-inertial Odometry and Mapping with High Robustness and Low Drift. Journal of Field Robotics. vol. 35, no. 8, pp. 1242–1264, 2018. (PDF) (Video)
J. Zhang and S. Singh. Visual-lidar Odometry and Mapping: Low-drift, Robust, and Fast. IEEE Intl. Conf. on Robotics and Automation (ICRA). Seattle, WA, May 2015. (PDF) (Video)
J. Zhang, M. Kaess, and S. Singh. Real-time Depth Enhanced Monocular Odometry. IEEE/RSJ Intl. Conf. on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS). Chicago, IL, Sept. 2014. (PDF) (Video)
J. Zhang and S. Singh. LOAM: Lidar Odometry and Mapping in Real-time. Robotics: Science and Systems Conference (RSS). Berkeley, CA, July 2014. (PDF) (Video)
Other Publications
F. Yang, C. Cao, H. Zhu, J. Oh, and J. Zhang. FAR Planner: Fast, Attemptable Route Planner using Dynamic Visibility Update. IEEE/RSJ Intl. Conf. on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS). Kyoto, Japan, Oct. 2022. Best Paper and Best Student Paper Finalist. (PDF) (Video)
C. Cao, H. Zhu, F. Yang, Y. Xia, H. Choset, J. Oh, and J. Zhang. Autonomous Exploration Development Environment and the Planning Algorithms. IEEE Intl. Conf. on Robotics and Automation (ICRA). Philadelphia, PA, May 2022. (PDF) (Video)
H. Zhu, C. Cao, S. Scherer, J. Zhang, and W. Wang. DSVP: Dual-Stage Viewpoint Planner for Rapid Exploration by Dynamic Expansion. IEEE/RSJ Intl. Conf. on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS). Prague, Czech, Sept. 2021. (PDF) (Video)
C. Cao, H. Zhu, H. Choset, and J. Zhang. TARE: A Hierarchical Framework for Efficiently Exploring Complex 3D Environments. Robotics: Science and Systems Conference (RSS). Virtual, July 2021. Best Paper Award and Best System Paper Award. (PDF) (Video)
J. Zhang, C. Hu, R. Gupta Chadha, and S. Singh. Falco: Fast Likelihood-based Collision Avoidance with Extension to Human-guided Navigation. Journal of Field Robotics. vol. 37, no. 8, pp. 1300–1313, 2020. (PDF) (Video)
J. Zhang, R. Gupta Chadha, V. Velivela, and S. Singh. P-CAL: Pre-computed Alternative Lanes for Aggressive Aerial Collision Avoidance. The 12th Intl. Conf. on Field and Service Robotics (FSR). Tokyo, Japan, Aug. 2019. (PDF) (Video)
J. Zhang, R. Gupta Chadha, V. Velivela, and S. Singh. P-CAP: Pre-computed Alternative Paths to Enable Aggressive Aerial Maneuvers in Cluttered Environments. IEEE/RSJ Intl. Conf. on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS). Madrid, Spain, Oct. 2018. (PDF) (Video)
J. Zhang and S. Singh. Aerial and Ground-based Collaborative Mapping: An Experimental Study. The 11th Intl. Conf. on Field and Service Robotics (FSR). Zurich, Switzerland, Sept. 2017. (PDF) (Video)
J. Zhang and S. Singh. Enabling Aggressive Motion Estimation at Low-drift and Accurate Mapping in Real-time. IEEE Intl. Conf. on Robotics and Automation (ICRA). Singapore, May 2017. (PDF) (Video)
J. Zhang, M. Kaess, and S. Singh. On Degeneracy of Optimization-based State Estimation Problems. IEEE Intl. Conf. on Robotics and Automation (ICRA). Stockholm, Sweden, May 2016. (PDF)
J. Zhang and S. Singh. Visual-Inertial Combined Odometry System for Aerial Vehicles. Journal of Field Robotics. vol. 32, no. 8, pp. 1043–1055, 2015. (PDF) (Video)
J. Zhang, A. Chambers, S.Maeta, M. Bergerman, and S. Singh. 3D Perception for Accurate Row Following: Methodology and Results. IEEE/RSJ Intl. Conf. on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS). Tokyo, Japan, Nov. 2013. (PDF) (Video)
Links
Robotics Post-Immersionism | Research Videos | 3D Arts | Photography