Ji Zhang, Ph.D.
Systems Scientist
Research: Navigation, Mapping, Localization,
Planning, Exploration
Address: 5000 Forbes Ave, NSH #2111
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 ignited 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 CMU-OSU Team a "Most Sectors Explored Award" on DARPA Subterranean Challenge. I hold another role at the National Robotics Engineering Center at CMU and lead some serious projects.
Curriculum Vitae (CV) | Google Scholar
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. The succeeding work is published on Science Robotics.
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
C. Cao, H. Zhu, Z. Ren, H. Choset, and J. Zhang. Representation Granularity Enables Time-Efficient Autonomous Exploration in Large, Complex Worlds. Science Robotics. vol. 8, no. 80, 2023. (PDF) (Video)
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. 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 Student Paper Award. (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)
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 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, 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-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)
Links
Robotics Post-Immersionism | Research Videos | 3D Arts | Photography