• Embodied AI 
• Task planning with LLM
• Robot Navigation
• Robot manipulation

Our research group continuously recruits undergraduates, masters, doctoral students, and interns who are interested in Embodied AI and LLM (Large Language Models).

Yaran Chen received her degree in the Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, in 2018. From Oct. 2020 to Dec. 2024, she was an associate researcher at the Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences. In Dec.2024, she joined Xian Jiaotong-Liverpool University as a faculty member.

Her research interests are in the areas of embodied AI, robot planning, navigation/manipulation, and VLA. She has published over 60 papers in renowned international journals and conferences such as IEEE TNNLS, IEEE TCYB, Info. Sci., ICLR, and ICRA and authored a book with more than 1700 citations and a Google h-index of 20. She has received several paper awards, including the only Outstanding Paper Award from IEEE TCDS in 2020 and finalists for Best Paper Awards at the IEEE IJCNN, IEEE WCICA, and IEEE DDCLS. She has also been honored with the Second Prize in Natural Science from the Beijing Science and Technology Award. Chen has led projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation for Youth, Tencent, and Huawei, among others. She achieved first place on the ALFRED, a well-known international embodied intelligence competition, and won three championships in the ICRA DIJ RoboMaster Artificial Intelligence Challenge, among other domestic and international competition awards.

• Second Prize, Beijing Science and Technology Award - Natural Science and Technology北京市自然科学二等奖, (Ranked 4^th)
• Best Paper Award Finalist, IEEE DDCLS, 2022 (Ranked 2^nd, Corr. Author, Advisor)
• Outstanding Paper Award, IEEE Trans. on Cognitive and Developmental Systems, 2020 (Ranked 2^nd, Advisor 1st)
• Best Paper Award Finalist，The International Joint Conference on Neural Networks, 2018 (Ranked 3^rd)
• Best Paper Award, Control Theory and Applications Journal, 2017 (Ranked 5^th)
• Best Paper Award Finalist, World Congress on Intelligent Control and Automation, 2016 (Ranked 1^st)
• First Place, ICRA 2024 RoboMaster University Sim2Real Challenge, 2024 (Advisor Ranked 1^st)
• First Place, International Embodied Intelligence List ALFRED, 2023 (Ranked 1^st)
• Champion, ICRA RoboMaster AI Challenge-Perception Track, 2020 (Ranked 1^st)
• Champion, ICRA RoboMaster AI Challenge-Path Planning Track, 2020 (Advisor Ranked 1^st)
• Champion, ICRA RoboMaster AI Challenge-Decision Track, 2020 (Advisor Ranked 1^st)
• First Prize, China "AI+" Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition Finals, 2019 (Ranked 1^st)
• Champion, China Intelligent Vehicle Future Challenge -Vehicle Distance Monitoring, 2017 (Ranked 1^st)
• Champion, China Intelligent Vehicle Future Challenge -Vehicle Detection, 2017 (Ranked 1^st)
• IEEE CIS research grant，2018 (Ranked 1^st)

• July 2018- Dec. 2024, Assistant Researcher/ Associate Researcher, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences
• Editorial Board Member of IEEE Trans. on Cognitive and Developmental Systems
• Reviewer for TNNLS, CVPR, ICLR and others.
• Finance Chair of IEEE Conference of Games 2022
• Organized the IEEE CoG 2022 competition: RoboMaster Robot Sim2Real Challenge
• Workshop & Tutorial Chair of IEEE CIS-RAM 2024
• Organized Special Sessions for IJCNN/ISNN/WCCI and other conferences
• Member of the Data-Driven Control, Learning, and Optimization Professional Committee of CAA
• Member of the Adaptive Dynamic Programming and Reinforcement Learning Professional Committee of CAA