Hi there 👋
I'm Yifu Tian. I go by Joseph. I'm now a Ph.D. student under the supervision of Prof. Chuchu Chen at George Washington University.
I received my B.Eng. in Electrical Computer Engineering from The Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2025.
Previously:
- I worked as a research assistant at AIRS.
- I was also a visiting scholar at UIUC, Thomas M. Siebel Center for CS.
Email / Google Scholar / GitHub / LinkedIn
Yifu (Joseph) Tian
PhD student@ GWU
Email: josepht@gwu.edu
- June, 2026, Our paper "Topological Motion Planning Diffusion: Generative Tangle-Free Path Planning for Tethered Robots in Obstacle-Rich Environments" has been accepted by IROS 2026! 🥳 See you in Pittsburgh!
- June, 2025: I received B.Eng. in Electrical Computer Engineering from The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Yifu Tian, Xinhang Xu, Thien-Minh Nguyen, Muqing Cao
IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2026
Paper / Video / Code /
In extreme environments, tethered robots require continuous navigation while avoiding cable entanglement. Traditional planners struggle in these lifelong planning scenarios due to topological unawareness, while topology-augmented graphsearch methods face computational bottlenecks in obstaclerich environments where the number of candidate topological classes increases. To address these challenges, we propose Topological Motion Planning Diffusion (TMPD), a novel generative planning framework that integrates lifelong topological memory.
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The George Wahington University, Washington D.C., USA
ME PhD in Robotics • Aug. 2026 to Present
Advisor: Prof. Chuchu CHEN
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The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, China
B.Eng in ECE • Aug. 2021 to Jun. 2025
Academic Advisor: Prof. Pooi-Yuen KAM
- Reviewer, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2026.
- Reviewer, IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L), 2026.
Beyond academic research, I am deeply committed to educational equity. I have been actively participating in charitable initiatives to support children in underdeveloped mountainous regions, providing them with educational resources and tutoring to help them pursue their studies.
Guzheng(learned since I was 6-year-old), Hiking, History, Chess, League of Legends(highest ranking Emerald on the NA server).
