Yilin Cai

Ph.D. Student in Robotics @ Georgia Tech, Poet, Roboticist

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I am a Ph.D. student in Robotics at Georgia Institute of Technology, advised by Dr. Yue Chen. Before joining Georgia Tech, I received my master’s degree in Robotic Systems Development (MRSD) at the Robotic Institute, Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), where I worked in Biorobotics Lab with Prof. Howie Choset. I received my B.Eng. degree in Mechanical Engineering (Hsue-shen Tsien Honor Class) from Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) in 2020.

My research interest lies in general medical robots and robot manipulation. Particularly, I focus on surgical robot system design, modeling and planning for continuum robots, and robotic grippers for in-hand manipulation. I also study control and planning for autonomous driving and SLAM.

Additionally, I was fortunate to work with Profs. Kenneth Salisbury, Gregory Chirikjian and Zhinan Zhang before.

News

Jun 30, 2024 One paper accepted to IROS 2024.
Jun 3, 2024 Present my work at PlanRobo Workshop at ICAPS 2024.
May 30, 2023 I presented my papers at ICRA 2023, London (video) and won the Outstanding Manipulation Paper Award.
Jan 31, 2023 The paper on statics modeling of medical snake was accepted to ISMR 2023.
Jan 27, 2023 Our master’s project on autonomous Zamboni was highlighted by CMU News.
Jan 17, 2023 Two papers, “Adaptive Robot Hand with Active Surfaces” and “DytanVO” were accepted to ICRA 2023.
Mar 7, 2022 My bachalor thesis on Rotating Microneedles was published in Research (Science Partner Journal, IF=11.036).
Aug 30, 2021 Finished my intern at Ronovo Surgical. Started my journey at CMU RI.

Selected Publications

  1. Multi-Agent Teamwise Cooperative Path Finding and Traffic Intersection Coordination
    Zhongqiang Ren, Yilin Cai, and hesheng Wang
    International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) 2024
  2. PWTO: A Heuristic Approach for Trajectory Optimization in Complex Terrains
    Yilin Cai, and Zhongqiang Ren
    12th ICAPS Workshop on Planning and Robotics (PlanRob) 2024
    arXiv
  3. Propagative Distance Optimization for Constrained Inverse Kinematics
    Yu Chen, Yilin Cai, Jinyun Xu, Zhongqiang Ren, Guanya Shi, and Howie Choset
    International Workshop on the Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics (WAFR) 2024
    arXiv
  4. Graph-Propagation-Based Kinematic Algorithm for In-Pipe Truss Structure Robots
    Yu Chen, Jinyun Xu, Yilin Cai, Shuo Yang, Ben Brown, Fujun Ruan, Yizhu Gu, Howie Choset, and Lu Li
    IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters 2024
    HTML
  5. A Steerable Cross-Axis Notched Continuum Manipulator for Endobronchial Intervention
    Xiaojie Ai, Yilin Cai, Anzhu Gao, and Weidong Chen
    IEEE Transactions on Medical Robotics and Bionics 2024
    HTML Slides
  6. In-Hand Manipulation in Power Grasp: Design of an Adaptive Robot Hand with Active Surfaces
    Winner, Outstanding Manipulation Paper Award; Finalist, Outstanding Conference Paper Award
    Yilin Cai, and Shenli Yuan
    International Conference on Robotics and Automationv (ICRA) 2023
    HTML VIDEO Poster
  7. Statics Modeling of Discrete Joint Surgical Probes with Tendon-based Stiffening
    Yilin Cai, Andrew Orekhov, and Howie Choset
    International Symposium on Medical Robotics (ISMR) 2023
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  8. DytanVO: Joint Refinement of Visual Odometry and Motion Segmentation in Dynamic Environments
    Shihao Shen, Yilin Cai, Wenshan Wang, and Sebastian Scherer
    International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2023
    HTML VIDEO
  9. Identifying Human Grasp Properties During Robot-to-Human Handovers
    Paul Pacaud, Etienne Chassaing, Yilin Cai, Connor Yako, and Kenneth Salisbury
    IEEE World Haptics Conference (WHC) 2023
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  10. Bioinspired Rotation Microneedles for Accurate Transdermal Positioning and Ultraminimal-Invasive Biomarker Detection with Mechanical Robustness
    Yilin Cai, Shiyi Huang, Zhinan Zhang, Jiazheng Zhang, Xingyue Zhu, Xiaoxiang Chen, and Xianting Ding
    Research 2022
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