Zhiyun Deng

My name is Zhiyun Deng, but my friends call me Jerry. I am a third-year Robotics PhD student in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, advised by Luis Sentis and affiliated with the Human Centered Robotics Laboratory. During my PhD, I have been working as an Applied Research Intern at AIVE AI Systems, a venture-backed robotics startup, driving research and development in aerial robotic autonomy.

Previously, I earned my Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, where I worked with Weiming Shen. I received my bachelor's degree in Automotive Engineering from Wuhan University of Technology, where I was a member of the Formula Student Electric China (FSEC) racing team.

During my free time, I enjoy tennis, badminton, cycling, paddleboarding, and swimming. I also play guitar and was the lead guitarist in bands back in high school and college. I enjoy vintage video games such as Grand Theft Auto, Minecraft, and Command & Conquer.

Email / LinkedIn / Scholar

Research

My goal is to build on-device agentic autonomy that synergizes perception, reasoning, planning, and control to achieve human-like intelligence for physical embodiments, including autonomous drones, self-driving cars, and robotics.

I am particularly interested in developing efficient Machine Learning and AI Systems for resource-constrained edge platforms operating in unstructured environments, with a recent focus on Alternative Position, Navigation and Time (APNT) systems that enable resilient autonomy for field robotics without dependency on external infrastructure such as GNSS or network connectivity.

Poster Spotlight

I will be attending WACV 2026 in Tucson from 3/5-3/11 and would be happy to connect.

Publications

AI-Driven Perception and Spatial Intelligence for Aerial–Ground Robotics Systems

	AirLock+: Scaling UAV-to-Satellite Image Registration for Target Geolocalization and Geospatial Augmented Reality Zhiyun Deng, Austin Case, Luis Sentis IEEE/CVF Winter Conference on Applications of Computer Vision (WACV), 2026 paper / poster / code and dataset (coming soon)
	Spatiotemporal Contrastive Learning for Cross-View Video Localization in Unstructured Off-road Terrains Zhiyun Deng, Dongmyeong Lee, Amanda Adkins, Jesse Quattrociocchi, Christian Ellis, Joydeep Biswas arXiv, 2025 paper / video / code (coming soon)
	Indoor Human-Mobile Robot Encounters: A Transdisciplinary Study on Perceived Safety Ryan Gupta, Emily Norman, Hyonyoung Shin, Zhiyun Deng, Maria Esteva, Nanshu Lu, Keri K. Stephens and Luis Sentis ACM Transactions in Human Robot Interaction, 2026 paper
	Curate, Connect, Inquire: A System for Findable Accessible Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR) Human-Robot Centered Datasets Xingru Zhou, Sadanand Modak, Yao-Cheng Chan, Zhiyun Deng, Luis Sentis, Maria Esteva ICRA Workshop Human-Centered Robot Learning, 2025 paper

Connected and Autonomous Mobility Systems

	V2X-lead: LiDAR-based end-to-end autonomous driving with vehicle-to-everything communication integration Zhiyun Deng, Yanjun Shi, Weiming Shen IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2023 paper / poster
	Cooperative Platoon Formation of Connected and Autonomous Vehicles: Toward Efficient Merging Coordination at Unsignalized Intersections Zhiyun Deng, Kaidi Yang, Weiming Shen, Yanjun Shi IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, 2023 paper
	A Coevolutionary Algorithm for Cooperative Platoon Formation of Connected and Automated Vehicles Zhiyun Deng, Jiaxin Fan, Yanjun Shi, Weiming Shen IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, 2022 paper
	A Conflict Duration Graph-based Coordination Method for Connected and Automated Vehicles at Signal-Free Intersections Zhiyun Deng, Yanjun Shi, Qiaomei Han, Lingling Lv, Weiming Shen Applied Sciences, 2020 paper

Industrial and Logistics Autonomy and Combinatorial Optimization

	Integrated Optimization of Storage Space Allocation and Crane Scheduling in Automated Storage and Retrieval Systems Wenbin Zhang, Zhiyun Deng, Chunjiang Zhang, Weiming Shen Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing, 2024 paper
	A Variable Neighborhood Search Algorithm for Airport Ferry Vehicle Scheduling Problem Lingling Lv, Zhiyun Deng, Chenyang Shao, Weiming Shen Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies, 2023 paper
	A Bottleneck-aware Two-stage Evolutionary Algorithm for Heat Pipe-constrained Component Layout Optimization Shichen Tian, Zhiyun Deng, Jiaxin Fan, Chunjiang Zhang, Weiming Shen, Liang Gao Expert Systems with Applications, 2024 paper