CV

Education

• Ph.D. in Biorobotics at Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, 2022-2025 (expected)
• 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, 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)

Z. Chen, S. Zhang, S. Luo, et al., “Tacchi: A Pluggable and Low Computational Cost Elastomer Deformation Simulator for Optical Tactile Sensors,” in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 1239–1246, 2023.

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)