Publications

Notation * indicates equal contributions.

2025

  1. Human2LocoMan: Learning Versatile Quadrupedal Manipulation with Human Pretraining
    Yaru Niu*, Yunzhe Zhang*, Mingyang Yu, Changyi Lin, Chenhao Li, Yikai Wang, Yuxiang Yang, Wenhao Yu, Tingnan Zhang, Bingqing Chen, Jonathan Francis, Zhenzhen Li, Jie Tan, Ding Zhao
    In Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS), 2025
    PDF Webpage
  2. Learning Multi-Agent Loco-Manipulation for Long-Horizon Quadrupedal Pushing
    Yuming Feng*, Chuye Hong*,  Yaru Niu*, Shiqi Liu, Yuxiang Yang, Wenhao Yu, Tingnan Zhang, Jie Tan, Ding Zhao
    In International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2025
    PDF Code Webpage
  3. QuietPaw: Learning Quadrupedal Locomotion with Versatile Noise Preference Alignment
    Yuyou Zhang, Yihang Yao, Shiqi Liu,  Yaru Niu, Changyi Lin, Yuxiang Yang, Wenhao Yu, Tingnan Zhang, Jie Tan, Ding Zhao
    arXiv preprint, 2025
    PDF

2024

  1. The RoboDrive Challenge: Drive Anytime Anywhere in Any Condition
    Lingdong Kong, Shaoyuan Xie, Hanjiang Hu,  Yaru Niu, et al.
    arXiv preprint, 2024
    PDF Code Webpage Video
  2. LocoMan: Advancing Versatile Quadrupedal Dexterity with Lightweight Loco-Manipulators
    Changyi Lin, Xingyu Liu, Yuxiang Yang,  Yaru Niu, Wenhao Yu, Tingnan Zhang, Jie Tan, Byron Boots, Ding Zhao
    In International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2024
    Spotlight talk at ICRA 2024 Workshop on Future Roadmap for Manipulation SKills
    PDF Code Webpage Media (TechXplore) Media (CMU Engineering) Media (IEEE Spectrum)
  3. COMPOSER: Scalable and Robust Modular Policies for Snake Robots
    Yuyou Zhang,  Yaru Niu, Xingyu Liu, Ding Zhao
    In International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2024
    Abridged in CoRL 2023 Workshop on Learning for Soft Robots: Hard Challenges for Soft Systems (Spotlight)
    PDF Webpage
  4. Safety-aware Causal Representation for Trustworthy Reinforcement Learning in Autonomous Driving
    Haohong Lin, Wenhao Ding, Zuxin Liu,  Yaru Niu, Jiacheng Zhu, Yuming Niu, Ding Zhao
    Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L), 2024
    Abridged in Machine Learning for Autonomous Driving Symposium
    PDF Code Poster Webpage

2023

  2. GOATS: Goal Sampling Adaptation for Scooping with Curriculum Reinforcement Learning
    Yaru Niu, Shiyu Jin*, Zeqing Zhang*, Jiacheng Zhu, Ding Zhao, Liangjun Zhang
    In International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2023
    Abridged in ICRA 2023 Workshop on Representing and Manipulating Deformable Objects [PDF] [Spotlight Talk]
    PDF Poster Webpage Talk Video
  3. Interpretable Reinforcement Learning for Robotics and Continuous Control
    Rohan Paleja*, Letian Chen*,  Yaru Niu*, Andrew Silva, Zhaoxin Li, Songan Zhang, Chace Ritchie, Sugju Choi, Kimberlee Chestnut Chang, Hongtei Eric Tseng, Yan Wang, Subramanya Nageshrao, Matthew Gombolay
    arXiv preprint, 2023
    PDF Code
  4. The RoboDepth Challenge: Methods and Advancements Towards Robust Depth Estimation
    Lingdong Kong,  Yaru Niu, Shaoyuan Xie, Hanjiang Hu, et al.
    arXiv preprint, 2023
    PDF Code Webpage Video
  5. Group Distributionally Robust Reinforcement Learning with Hierarchical Latent Variables
    Mengdi Xu, Peide Huang,  Yaru Niu, Visak Kumar, Jielin Qiu, Chao Fang, Kuan-Hui Lee, Xuewei Qi, Henry Lam, Bo Li, Ding Zhao
    In International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics (AISTATS), 2023
    In 5th Symposium on Advances in Approximate Bayesian Inference
    PDF Poster Webpage

2022

  1. Domain Knowledge Driven Pseudo Labels for Interpretable Goal-Conditioned Interactive Trajectory Prediction
    Lingfeng Sun*, Chen Tang*,  Yaru Niu, Enna Sachdeva, Chiho Choi, Teruhisa Misu, Masayoshi Tomizuka, Wei Zhan
    In International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2022
    PDF Slides Talk
  2. Adaptable and Scalable Multi-Agent Graph-Attention Communication
    Yaru Niu
    Committee:  Matthew Gombolay,  Ayanna Howard,  Sonia Chernova
    Master’s Thesis, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2022
    HTML PDF
  3. Learning Interpretable, High-Performing Policies for Autonomous Driving
    Rohan Paleja*,  Yaru Niu*, Andrew Silva, Chace Ritchie, Sugju Choi, Matthew Gombolay
    In Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS), 2022
    HTML PDF Code Poster Talk

2021

  1. Multi-Agent Graph-Attention Communication and Teaming
    Yaru Niu*, Rohan Paleja*, Matthew Gombolay
    In International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS), 2021 (Oral)
    Best Paper Award at ICCV 2021 Mair2 Workshop [PDF] [Spotlight Talk]
    PDF Code Talk

2020

  1. Modification of Gesture-Determined-Dynamic Function with Consideration of Margins for Motion Planning of Humanoid Robots
    Zhijun Zhang, Lingdong Kong,  Yaru Niu, Ziang Liang
    arXiv preprint, 2020
    PDF

2018

  1. Real-Time Whole-Body Imitation by Humanoid Robots and Task-Oriented Teleoperation using an Analytical Mapping Method and Quantitative Evaluation
    Zhijun Zhang*,  Yaru Niu*, Ziyi Yan, Shuyang Lin
    Applied Sciences, 2018
    HTML PDF Code Video
  2. Analysis of Influencing Factors on Humanoid Robots’ Emotion Expressions by Body Language
    Zhijun Zhang,  Yaru Niu, Shangen Wu, Shuyang Lin, Lingdong Kong
    In International Symposium on Neural Networks, 2018
    HTML PDF
  3. A Time-Varying-Constrained Motion Generation Scheme for Humanoid Robot Arms
    Zhijun Zhang, Lingdong Kong, Yaru Niu
    In International Symposium on Neural Networks 2018
    HTML PDF