Alan Zhao

Alan (Jialiang) Zhao

PhD Candidate, MIT CSAIL

Hi there!

I'm currently a PhD candidate with the Perceptual Science Group at MIT CSAIL. I'm advised by Professor Edward H. Adelson. Below is a short summay of what I've been up to in recent years:

2022 - now:

Cambridge, MA

Working towards my PhD at MIT CSAIL and MechE. I build tactile sensors to bring touch sensing to robots, and I research ways to teach robots to interact with things, or the world.

2021 - 2022:

Mountain View, CA

Worked on planning & prediction for self-driving cars at Nuro Inc. Very much enjoyed having real cars running on real streets in the city of Mountain View with my own algorithms. It felt crazy (and maybe a bit uneasy:) when I also sat in that car. Also enjoyed the California sunshine.

2018 - 2020:

Pittsburgh, PA

Worked towards my Master in Robotics degree at The Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University. Had the great pleasure to work with Prof. Oliver Kroemer at the IAM lab. Focused mostly on robot learning for robot manipulation.

2017 - 2018:

Berkeley, CA

Worked on building & optimizing exoskeletons with Prof. Ruzena Bajcsy at UC Berkeley HART Lab as an undergrad researcher.

Out of work & school, I enjoy software and hardware robotics DIY. I recently started filming some of my hardware DIYs. Check out my YouTube channel Crafted by JZ or my BiliBili channel 试作间 if interested. Check out the #hobby section for released projects. Recently I'm working on an ambitious software project called tpvortex.org. Stay tuned.

News

  • 2023 Oct: My paper on GelSight Svelte was nominated for the best paper award at IROS 2023!
  • 2023 May: My paper FingerSLAM was presented at ICRA in London.
  • 2023 May: I passed my qualification exam, so I'm officially a PhD candidate now:)

Research

Electronics insertion
Learning to insert electronics with submillimeter-level tolerance from tactile sensing and extrinsic contacts
J. Zhao as the leading contributor. In preparation.
policy composition
PoCo: Policy Composition From and For Heterogeneous Robot Learning
L. Wang, J. Zhao, Y. Du, E. Adelson, R. Tedrake. In preparation.
TacLink Sensor
TacLink: A Compact Multi-phalanx Finger with Vision-based Tactile Sensing and Proprioception
Y. Ma, J. Zhao, E. Adelson. Accepted to the 2024 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 2024).
Gelsight Svelte sensor
GelSight Svelte: A Human Finger-shaped Single-camera Tactile Robot Finger with Large Sensing Coverage and Proprioceptive Sensing
J. Zhao and E. Adelson. Accepted to the 2023 International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2023)
Gelsight Svelte Hand
GelSight Svelte Hand: A Three-finger, Two-DoF, Low-cost, Tactile-rich Robot Hand for Dexterous Manipulation
J. Zhao and E. Adelson. Submitted to the IROS workshop on Visuo-Tactile Perception, Learning, Control for Manipulation and HRI (IROS RoboTac 2023)
FingerSLAM: Closed-loop Unknown Object Localization and Reconstruction from Visuo-tactile Feedback
FingerSLAM: Closed-loop Unknown Object Localization and Reconstruction from Visuo-tactile Feedback
J. Zhao, M. Bauza, and E. Adelson. Accepted to the 2023 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 2023)
Causal Reasoning in Simulation for Structure and Transfer Learning of Robot Manipulation Policies
Causal Reasoning in Simulation for Structure and Transfer Learning of Robot Manipulation Policies
T. E. Lee, J. Zhao, A. S. Sawhney, S. Girdhar, O. Kroemer. Accepted to the 2021 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 2021)
Learning to Compose Hierarchical Object-Centric Controllers for
                                Robotic Manipulation
Learning to Compose Hierarchical Object-Centric Controllers for Robotic Manipulation
M. Sharma*, J. Liang*, J. Zhao, A. LaGrassa, O. Kroemer. Conference on Robot Learning (CoRL). November 2020.
Towards Robotic Assembly by Predicting Robust, Precise and Task-oriented Grasps
Towards Robotic Assembly by Predicting Robust, Precise and Task-oriented Grasps
J. Zhao, D. Troniak, O.Kroemer. Submitted and accepted to 2020 Conference on Robot Learning (CoRL 2020). Oral presentation.
Towards Precise Robotic Grasping by Probabilistic Post-grasp Displacement Estimation
Towards Precise Robotic Grasping by Probabilistic Post-grasp Displacement Estimation
J. Zhao, J. Liang, O.Kroemer. Submitted and accepted to 12th Conference on Field and Service Robotics (FSR 2019). Oral presentation.

...more on my Google Scholar page.

Hobby Corner

Alkaid Mount

Alkaid Mount: Equatorial mount built with HarmonicDrive for astrophotography

A small yet sturdy equatorial mount built for astronomy/astrophotography, using real HarmonicDrive gearboxes. Fully open-sourced. See my blog post for more details.

Neptune MIDI

Neptune MIDI

A 3d printed MIDI controller that can be used for video and photo editing (Lightroom, Photoshop, Premiere, DaVinci Resolve, etc.) It contains mechanical switches, rotary encoders, sliders, a joystick, and a small oled screen. Solidworks source files, STL files, BOM are fully open source.

Neptune MIDI

RS-Slider

A mostly 3d printed, motorized, 2-axis camera slider that is Really Solid (R.S.). Tested with a 15lbs cinema camera setup. Software and hardware W.I.P. Details to be added.

RPI AirPlay HiFi

RPI AirPlay HiFi

AirPlay + DAC + AMP, using a Raspberry Pi Zero W and HiFiBerry. Source files & instructins can be found in

Filter Drawer

2" Filter drawer for astrophotography

A filter drawer that houses a single 2" filter which be used between a telescope and a Nikon or Canon camera

Resume