CV
Education
- Ph.D. in Biorobotics at Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, 2022-2025
- Exchange Ph.D. student at EPFL, Aug-Oct, 2024
- M.Sc. in Control Systems at Imperial College, 2020-2021
Work experience
- Nov. 2021- Sep. 2022: Research Assistant
- King’s College London and Tsinghua University
- Research about optical tactile sensors, including sensor simulation, Sim2Real transfer learning, and reinforcement learning
- Supervisor: Dr. Shan Luo and Dr. Bin Fang
Five Representative Publications
(Please refer to the Publications page for the complete publication list.)
Z. Chen, Q. Guan, J. Hughes, et al., “A Versatile Neural Network Configuration Space Planning and Control Strategy for Modular Soft Robot Arms,” in IEEE Transactions on Robotics, vol. 41, pp. 4269-4282, 2025.
Z. Chen, X. Ren, Y. Hamamatsu, et al., “AdapJ: An Adaptive Extended Jacobian Controller for Soft Manipulators,” in IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics, 2025. (accepted)
Z. Chen, F. Renda, A. Le Gall, et al., “Data-driven Methods Applied to Soft Robot Modeling and Control: A Review,” in IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, vol. 22, pp. 2241-2256, 2025.
Z. Chen, D. Wu, Q. Guan, D. Hardman, F. Renda, J. Hughes, T. G. Thuruthe, C. Della Santina, B. Mazzolai, H. Zhao, and C. Stefanini, “A Survey on Soft Robot Adaptability: Implementations, Applications, and Prospects,” in IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine (accepted)
Z. Chen, M. Bernabei, V. Mainardi, et al., “A Novel and Accurate BiLSTM Configuration Controller for Modular Soft Robots with Module Number Adaptability,” in Soft Robotics (accepted)
Academic Service
I am the main organizer of the serial workshops ‘SOFT Frontiers’:
IROS 2024 ‘The SOFT Frontier: Adaptive technologies in soft robotics’
IROS 2025 ‘The SOFT Frontier 2: Practical applications in soft robotics’
Five Representative Peer Review Records
IEEE Transactions on Robotics (T-RO)
IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering (T-ASE)
IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics (TIE)
Soft Robotics (SoRo)
IEEE Transactions on Medical Robotics and Bionics (T-MRB)