Yuwei Wu

Yuwei Wu


I'm Yuwei, a third-year Ph.D. candidate in Electrical and Systems Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, in the General Robotics, Automation, Sensing, and Perception (GRASP) Laboratory, under the supervision of Prof. Vijay Kumar. My research focuses on motion planning and trajectory optimization for mobile robots, particularly in dynamic, uncertain, and complex real-world environments. I received my B.Eng. degree in Transportation Engineering from Beijing Jiaotong University, China, in 2019, and my M.S.E. degree in Systems Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania in 2022. Before my Ph.D., I worked with Prof. Fei Gao on trajectory optimization for quadrotors. My research interests are:

  • (Multi-agent) Task and motion planning
  • (Learning-enabled) Trajectory generation and optimization
  • Aerial robot applications (exploration, tracking, navigation)

    • The goal of my research is to push the foundational limits of optimization problems, improve system robustness, and provide long-horizon guarantees for next-generation robots capable of making intelligent decisions.
    Recent News:
    • [Mar. 2025] Our workshop Leveraging Implicit Methods for Aerial Autonomy was accepted to RSS 2025.
    • [Mar. 2025] I gave a talk at the ESE Ph.D. Colloquium titled “Real-Time Spatiotemporal Motion Planning for Autonomous Robots.”
    • [Mar. 2025] One paper was accepted to IEEE RA-L.
    • [Jan. 2025] Two papers were accepted to IEEE ICRA 2025.
    • [Nov. 2024] Presented a demo featured in PHL17 News covering our drone research.
    • [Jun. 2024] ROS and Open Robotics featured our open-source work in a post on X.
    • [Sep. 2024] Our RA-L paper was presented at IEEE ICRA@40.
    • [Sep. 2024] One paper was accepted to DARs and nomiated as DARS best paper award.
    • [Jul. 2024] I presented our work at the TILOS 2024 Industry Day .
    • [Jun. 2024] One paper was accepted to IEEE/RSJ IROS 2024.
    • [Apr. 2024] I gave a talk on How robots find their way at Roxborough Library, Fun With Robots program.
    • [Jan. 2024] One paper was accepted to IEEE RA-L and one paper was accepted to IEEE ICRA 2024.
    • [Jun. 2023] I presented our work at the TILOS 2023 Industry Day .
    • [Jan. 2023] Passed my qualifying exam and advanced to Ph.D. candidacy.
    • [Jan. 2023] One paper was accepted to IEEE ICRA 2023.
    • [Sep. 2022] I presented our work at CBRIC 2022 Annual Meeting.
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