Lifeng Zhou
 |
Assistant Professor
|
About me
I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Drexel University. Previously, I was a Postdoctoral Researcher at the GRASP Lab of the University of Pennsylvania. I obtained my Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Virginia Tech in 2020. Before that, I received my MS from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2016 and my BS from Huazhong University of Science and Technology in 2013. I serve as an Associate Editor for the ICRA Conference Editorial Board.
My research focuses on enabling robust, adaptive, and scalable autonomy in robotics and multi-robot systems.
I am particularly interested in developing generalizable methods for coordination, perception, planning, and control,
leveraging both algorithmic frameworks and data-driven techniques.
This includes work on multi-robot coordination, foundation models—including large language models (LLMs), vision-language models (VLMs),
and vision-language-action models (VLAs)—as well as model predictive control (MPC) and resilient and risk-aware decision-making.
A central goal of my research is to advance autonomy that can generalize across tasks and environments,
with applications in disaster response, autonomous driving, precision agriculture, and robotic manipulation. I am especially interested in how collaborative intelligence and foundation models can empower robot teams to reason and act reliably despite limited communication, environmental uncertainty, and dynamically evolving conditions. Find out more.
Education
Ph.D. in Electrical & Computer Engineering, Virginia Tech, August 2016 - May 2020
M.S. in Automation, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, September 2013 - March 2016
B.S. in Automation, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, September 2009 - June 2013