Dr. Shenghai Yuan

I received my B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical and Electronic Engineering in 2013 and 2019, respectively, from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. My research focuses on robotics perception and navigation. Currently, I am a senior research fellow at the Centre for Advanced Robotics Technology Innovation (CARTIN) at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. My research interest lies in robotics, with a focus on SLAM, sensor fusion, and autonomous navigation in challenging environments such as mines and dynamic human-robot spaces, aiming to advance adaptive and collaborative robotic systems.

I have authored over 140 papers in top-tier journals such as T-RO, IJRR, ISPRS, T-IE, and RAL, and at leading conferences including ICRA, CVPR, ICCV, NeurIPS, and IROS. My work has been cited over 3,100 times. I actively serve as a reviewer for all major robotics and vision venues, receiving Outstanding Reviewer Awards from ICRA and CVPR, and the Best Editorial Award for community service. I am an Associate Editor for WSPC Unmanned Systems and a Guest Editor for MDPI Electronics (Special Issue: Advanced Technologies of Navigation for Intelligent Vehicles).

Throughout my academic journey and professional career, I have always been passionate about mentoring and guiding others. I have had the privilege of mentoring or co-supervising over 120 undergraduate Design and Innovation project students, more than 25 undergraduate Final Year Project students, 16 Master’s students, and nine doctoral students. Beyond one-on-one mentorship, I have shared my expertise through more than five seminar talks, reaching a combined audience of over 5,000 participants, both online and in person. Currently, I am seeking an academic position where I can further contribute to education, innovation, and research in the field.

news

Nov 25, 2025	🎤 Invited talk at the School of Artificial Intelligence, Nankai University — “Spatial Intelligence for Human–Robot Interaction: From SLAM to Cooperation and Contention.” Discussed advances in spatial intelligence, SLAM, and embodied interaction, highlighting recent progress in human–robot cooperation and autonomous systems research.
Nov 20, 2025	🎤 Invited talk at the SJTU Paris Elite Institute of Technology (Shanghai Jiao Tong University) during the China–France International Young Scholars Forum 2025. Delivered the talk “Spatial Intelligence for Human–Robot Interaction: From SLAM to Cooperation and Contention,” sharing insights on embodied and spatial intelligence for robust human–robot interaction across cooperative and adversarial contexts.
Nov 08, 2025	🎤 Invited talk at the International Conference on Geospatial Information Science: Education, Innovation and Applications (GIS-EIA 2025) hosted by Wuhan University. Delivered the talk “Spatial Intelligence for Human–Robot Interaction: From SLAM to Cooperation and Contention,” sharing perspectives on embodied and spatial intelligence for next-generation autonomous systems.
Oct 31, 2025	🎤 Invited talk at the School of Artificial Intelligence and Automation, Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) — “Spatial Intelligence for Human–Robot Interaction: From SLAM to Cooperation and Contention.” Discussed embodied and spatial intelligence for robust human–robot interaction, covering cooperative and adversarial scenarios from crowd-aware navigation to anti-UAV autonomy.
Oct 27, 2025	🏅 Honored with the Best Editorial Award from WSPC Unmanned Systems for outstanding contributions to journal development and community service. Grateful to the editorial board and robotics community for the continued support and collaboration.
Aug 30, 2025	🎤 Invited talk at the Hangzhou International Innovation Institute of Beihang University — “Spatial Intelligence for Human–Robot Interaction: From SLAM to Cooperation and Contention.” Shared system-level insights connecting SLAM, perception, and multi-modal human–robot interaction across cooperative and adversarial contexts.
Jun 16, 2025	🎉 Eight papers and one workshop accepted to IROS 2025, including our CARIC 2025 competition on UAV swarm inspection! 🔗 Join the challenge: https://ntu-aris.github.io/caric
Jun 13, 2025	🎉 One paper has been accepted by CVPR 2025. Thanks to my collaborators for the great teamwork. 🏅 I have also been recognized as an Outstanding Reviewer for CVPR 2025. Thanks to the CVPR community and area chairs for the recognition.
Feb 11, 2025	Two papers are accepted by IEEE Transactions on Robotics (TRO)
Jan 29, 2025	Seven papers are accepted by ICRA 2025
Dec 24, 2024	Two papers accepted by ICASSP 2025
Nov 25, 2024	One paper “Robust Loop Closure by Textual Cues” is accepted by RAL
Oct 31, 2024	We release the GPTR, a continuous-time trajectory representation based on gaussian process for motion estimation. Check out the paper and the source code!
Oct 17, 2024	I`m invited to serve as IROS chair of three sessions.
Oct 13, 2024	Organized and chair of IROS 2024 Workshop on Multi-Robot Perception and Navigation Challenges in Logistics and Inspection Tasks. Here are the winning teams Leaderboard. Congratulations.

selected publications

SGBA: Semantic Gaussian Mixture Model-Based LiDAR Bundle Adjustment

Xingyu Ji, Shenghai Yuan^*, Jianping Li, Pengyu Yin, Haozhi Cao, and Lihua Xie

IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 2024

DOI arXiv Bib HTML Video Code

@article{ji2024sgba,
  title = {SGBA: Semantic Gaussian Mixture Model-Based LiDAR Bundle Adjustment},
  author = {Ji, Xingyu and Yuan, Shenghai and Li, Jianping and Yin, Pengyu and Cao, Haozhi and Xie, Lihua},
  journal = {IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters},
  year = {2024},
  doi = {10.1109/LRA.2024.3479699},
  publisher = {IEEE}
}

AIR-Embodied: An Efficient Active 3DGS-based Interaction and Reconstruction Framework with Embodied Large Language Model

Zhenghao Qi, Shenghai Yuan^*, Fen Liu, Haozhi Cao, Tianchen Deng, Jianfei Yang, and Lihua Xie

arXiv preprint arXiv:2409.16019, 2024

Bib Video

@article{qi2024air,
  title = {AIR-Embodied: An Efficient Active 3DGS-based Interaction and Reconstruction Framework with Embodied Large Language Model},
  author = {Qi, Zhenghao and Yuan, Shenghai and Liu, Fen and Cao, Haozhi and Deng, Tianchen and Yang, Jianfei and Xie, Lihua},
  journal = {arXiv preprint arXiv:2409.16019},
  year = {2024}
}

Distance-Based Multiple Noncooperative Ground Target Encirclement for Complex Environments

Fen Liu, Shenghai Yuan^*, Kun Cao, Wei Meng, and Lihua Xie

IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, 2024

DOI arXiv Bib HTML Video Code

@article{liu2024distance,
  title = {Distance-Based Multiple Noncooperative Ground Target Encirclement for Complex Environments},
  author = {Liu, Fen and Yuan, Shenghai and Cao, Kun and Meng, Wei and Xie, Lihua},
  journal = {IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology},
  year = {2024},
  doi = {10.1109/TCST.2024.3469032},
  publisher = {IEEE}
}

MMAUD: A Comprehensive Multi-Modal Anti-UAV Dataset for Modern Miniature Drone Threats

Shenghai Yuan, Yizhuo Yang, Thien Hoang Nguyen, Thien-Minh Nguyen, Jianfei Yang, Fen Liu, Jianping Li, Han Wang, and Lihua Xie

In In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2024

DOI arXiv Bib HTML Video Code

@inproceedings{yuan2024MMAUD,
  author = {Yuan, Shenghai and Yang, Yizhuo and Nguyen, Thien Hoang and Nguyen, Thien-Minh and Yang, Jianfei and Liu, Fen and Li, Jianping and Wang, Han and Xie, Lihua},
  booktitle = {In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)},
  title = {MMAUD: A Comprehensive Multi-Modal Anti-UAV Dataset for Modern Miniature Drone Threats},
  year = {2024},
  pages = {2745-2751},
  doi = {10.1109/ICRA57147.2024.10610957}
}

Mcd: Diverse large-scale multi-campus dataset for robot perception

Thien-Minh Nguyen, Shenghai Yuan^*, Thien Hoang Nguyen, Pengyu Yin, Haozhi Cao, Lihua Xie, Maciej Wozniak, Patric Jensfelt, Marko Thiel, Justin Ziegenbein, and others

In Proceedings of the IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, 2024

arXiv Bib HTML Supp Code

@inproceedings{nguyen2024mcd,
  title = {Mcd: Diverse large-scale multi-campus dataset for robot perception},
  author = {Nguyen, Thien-Minh and Yuan, Shenghai and Nguyen, Thien Hoang and Yin, Pengyu and Cao, Haozhi and Xie, Lihua and Wozniak, Maciej and Jensfelt, Patric and Thiel, Marko and Ziegenbein, Justin and others},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition},
  pages = {22304--22313},
  year = {2024}
}

Ntu viral: A visual-inertial-ranging-lidar dataset, from an aerial vehicle viewpoint

Thien-Minh Nguyen, Shenghai Yuan, Muqing Cao, Yang Lyu, Thien H Nguyen, and Lihua Xie

The International Journal of Robotics Research, 2022

Bib

@article{nguyen2022ntu,
  title = {Ntu viral: A visual-inertial-ranging-lidar dataset, from an aerial vehicle viewpoint},
  author = {Nguyen, Thien-Minh and Yuan, Shenghai and Cao, Muqing and Lyu, Yang and Nguyen, Thien H and Xie, Lihua},
  journal = {The International Journal of Robotics Research},
  volume = {41},
  number = {3},
  pages = {270--280},
  year = {2022},
  publisher = {SAGE Publications Sage UK: London, England}
}