Yihan Li [李艺涵]

Explorer in Robotics World

prof_pic.jpg

I’m a Robotics MSE student at GRASP Lab, University of Pennsylvania, advised by Prof. Nadia Figueroa. I’m also one of the 2025 Robotics Student Fellows in ETH Robotics Student Fellowship at Robotic Systems Lab, led by Prof. Marco Hutter.

Prior to this, I received my bachelor’s degree in Automation Engineering Major and EE & Automation Engineering Minor from Qian Xuesen Honors College, Xi’an Jiaotong University. During my undergrad, I also worked as a visiting student at Hybrid Robotics Group, UC Berkeley, advised by Prof. Koushil Sreenath.

My research interest lies in robot learning and control in pHRI(Physical Human–Robot Interaction) scenarios, currently with a particular emphasis on whole-body manipulation. I aim to develop adaptive, efficient, robust and safe robotic systems capable of interaction with dynamic physical environments and smooth human–robot collaboration, which could be integrated into people’s daily lives to provide assistance and care. I’m actively seeking for opening PhD positions in 2026Fall.

News

Jul 01, 2025 Start summer internship at Robotic Systems Lab led by Prof. Marco Hutter as one of the 2025 Robotics Student Fellows(10 out of 327 applicants).
Jun 21, 2025 Attend RSS 2025 in Los Angeles as a volunteer and workshop author.
Aug 25, 2024 Joined Figueroa Robotics Lab@Penn in University of Pennsylvania, advised by Prof. Nadia Figueroa.
Feb 14, 2024 Joined CLEAR Lab in SUSTech as a research assistant during 2024 Spring, advised by Prof. Wei Zhang.
Sep 30, 2022 Joined Hybrid Robotics Group as a visiting student in UC Berkeley, advised by Prof. Koushil Sreenath.

Publications

  1. Flow with the Force Field: Learning 3D Compliant Flow Matching Policies from Force and Demonstration-Guided Simulation Data
    Tianyu Li* , Yihan Li*, Zizhe Zhang, and Nadia Figueroa
    Under Review, 2025
    arXiv / pdf / Website
  2. IteraOptiRacing: A Unified Planning-Control Framework for Real-time Autonomous Racing for Iterative Optimal Performance
    Yifan Zeng* , Yihan Li*, Suiyi He, Koushil Sreenath, and Jun Zeng
    Under Review, 2025
    arXiv / pdf /
  3. VLMGINEER: Vision Language Models as Robotic Toolsmiths
    George Jiayuan Gao*, Tianyu Li*, Junyao Shi , Yihan Li†, Zizhe Zhang†, Nadia Figueroa, and Dinesh Jayaraman
    Oral Spotlight at RSS Workshop on Robot Hardware-Aware Intelligence, 2025
    Under Review, 2025
    arXiv / pdf / Website
  4. I2LQR: Iterative LQR for iterative tasks in dynamic environments
    Yifan Zeng, Suiyi He, Han Hoang Nguyen , Yihan Li , Zhongyu Li, Koushil Sreenath, and Jun Zeng
    2023 62nd IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC), 2023
    arXiv / pdf /

Projects

project thumbnail

Whole-body Control for Force-attending Mobile Manipulation

Master's Independent Study
project thumbnail

Adapting to Injuries for Dexterous In-Hand Manipulation

RSF Project in ETH
project thumbnail

Iterative MPPI Car Racing

Undergraduate Thesis

Professional Services

Reviwer: ICRA 2023

Volunteer: RSS 2025

Miscellaneous

Love playing the piano 🎹, singing 🎤 and composing 🎼.

I'm a big fan of various musicals 🎭 (e.g., Broadway, German-Austrian Musicals, French Musicals, etc.). Some of my favorite musicals include The Phantom of the Opera, Les Misérables, Elisabeth, and Le Rouge et le Noir.