Biography

I am genuinely passionate about robotics and excited by the growing advancements in machine learning. My goal is to explore how to merge these two domains by integrating motion planning and control with neural networks. I aspire to bridge the gap between simulation and reality, transforming complex robotic behaviors from captivating animations into real-world robots. Additionally, I am eager to explore the potential for generalizing imitation learning and reinforcement learning.

I am born in Kunming, Yunnan, and I am a minority of Yi. I love traveling, reading and my family. My favorite book is Norwegian Wood, and my favorite dishes are small pot rice noodles and stir-fried eggs and tomatoes. I would not be who I am today without the love and support of my parents, my beloved, and my friends.

News

2026/01/10 - Our paper LiDAR-VGGT was accepted by RA-L 2026. [paper]
2025/09/01 - Started my M.Sc. in Robotics with a Minor in Data Science at EPFL.
2025/09/25 - Released our paper Query as You Need: Query-centric Diffusion Policy for Generalizable Robotic Assembly. [paper]
2024/12/05 - Our paper FACT was accepted by RA-L 2024. [paper]
2024/08/30 - Our paper about Active Mutual Observations in Swarms was accepted by IROS 2024. [paper]

Publications & Projects

Publications

Mapping

LiDAR-VGGT: Cross-Modal Coarse-to-Fine Fusion for Globally Consistent and Metric-Scale Dense Mapping Lijie Wang, Lianjie Guo, Ziyi Xu, Qianhao Wang, Fei Gao, and Xieyuanli Chen We propose LiDAR-VGGT, a novel framework that tightly couples LiDAR inertial odometry with the state-of-the-art VGGT model. RA-L, 2026. [paper]

LEMON-Mapping: Loop-Enhanced Large-Scale Multi-Session Point Cloud Merging and Optimization for Globally Consistent Mapping Lijie Wang, Xiaoyi Zhong, Ziyi Xu, Kaixin Chai, Anke Zhao, Tianyu Zhao, Changjian Jiang, Qianhao Wang†, Xieyuanli Chen†, and Fei Gao We propose LEMON-Mapping, a loop-enhanced framework for large-scale, multi-session point cloud fusion and optimization. We re-examine the role of loops in multi-robot mapping and present three key innovations. [paper]

Manipulation

Query as You Need: Query-centric Diffusion Policy for Generalizable Robotic Assembly Ziyi Xu*, Haohong Lin*, Shiqi Liu*, and Ding Zhao Developed a two-stage hierarchical framework with a query-centric diffusion policy for zero-shot execution of long-horizon assembly tasks in robot manipulation, using task-relevant queries to guide the policy. (* indicates equal contribution) [paper]

Drones

Preserving Relative Localization of FoV-Limited Drone Swarm via Active Mutual Observation Lianjie Guo*, Zaitian Gongye*, Ziyi Xu, Yingjian Wang, Xin Zhou, Jinni Zhou, and Fei Gao To balance the demands for FoV-limited swarms by acquiring environment observation as well as mutual observations with a safety guarantee, this paper proposes an active localization correction system, which plans camera orientations via a yaw planner during the flight. IROS, 2024. (* indicates equal contribution) [paper]

FACT: Fast and Active Coordinate Initialization for Vision-based Drone Swarms Yuan Li*, Anke Zhao*, Yingjian Wang*, Ziyi Xu, Xin Zhou, Jinni Zhou, Chao Xu, and Fei Gao RA-L, 2024. (* indicates equal contribution) Our paper proposes a complete system to recover a swarm's initial relative pose on platforms with size, weight, and power (SWaP) constraints. [paper]

Projects

ROBOMASTER University AI Challenge (Classic) 2023-2024 National Champion - Anke Zhao, Ziyi Xu, Weiye Zhang, Zaitian Gongye, William Wu Teamed up and won an autonomous drone racing nation-wide challenge with our self-built drone. [video]

Real-time 3D Point Cloud Object Detection on Auto-wheeled Robot Platform National Student Research Training Program (SRTP) - Ziyi Xu, Zifei Wu, Zhe Yang We self-designed and developed a real-time object tracking autonomous car from scratch.

Reinforcement Learning for UAV Trajectory Tracking Course Project: Innovation and Practice in Robotics - Ziyi Xu, Lijie Wang, Liang Wang We generated a trajectory library and used PPO to train diverse trajectory tracking policies for real-world deployment.

Life & Social

Zhejiang University Student Robot Association President of Association (Jun, 2022 - Jun, 2023) Led an association of over 100 students passionate about robotics, organized workshops and expert lectures, and achieved the 2022-2023 Zhejiang University Top10 Students' Association Award.