Xinyi Chen (Cindy)

I am a Ph.D. candidate at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), advised by Prof. Shaojie Shen. Currently, I am a visiting researcher at the Mobile Robotics Lab in ETH Zurich, working with Prof. Stefan Leutenegger. Before that, I received a B.Sc. degree in Mathematics (Pure Mathematics Advanced Track) and in Computer Science from HKUST in 2021, when I have been exchanged to ETH Zurich in 2020 Spring.

🎓 I am expected to graduate in 2027 and actively exploring postdoctoral opportunities. If you are interested in collaboration, please feel free to contact me.

news

Oct 14, 2026	A comprehensive system work “RAVEN: A Unified Active SLAM System for Rapid Autonomous Visual Exploration with Aerial Robots under Localization Uncertainty” was conditionally accepted by IEEE Transactions on Robotics (T-RO). More details coming soon.
Apr 28, 2025	An interesting paper Active Contact Engagement for Aerial Navigation in Unknown Environments with Glass was accepted by IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L). Check out the video here.
Dec 25, 2024	Our paper FALCON: Fast Autonomous Aerial Exploration Using Coverage Path Guidance was accepted by IEEE Transactions on Robotics (T-RO).
Mar 22, 2024	We are thrilled that our ICRA2024 paper APACE was selected in IEEE Spectrum’s Video Friday: Your weekly selection of awesome robot videos! Check out the post here.
Jan 29, 2024	Our paper APACE: Agile and Perception-aware Trajectory Generation for Quadrotor Flights was accepted by 2024 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA2024). See you in Yokohama, Japan!

selected publications

RAVEN: A Unified Active SLAM System for Rapid Autonomous Visual Exploration with Aerial Robots under Localization Uncertainty

Xinyi Chen, Yichen Zhang, Chenxing Jiang, and 1 more author

Conditional acceptance

IEEE Transactions on Robotics (T-RO), 2026

Active Contact Engagement for Aerial Navigation in Unknown Environments with Glass

Xinyi Chen^*, Yichen Zhang^*, Hetai Zou^*, and 2 more authors

* Equal contribution

IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L), 2025

arXiv Bib Video

@article{chen2025active,
  title = {Active Contact Engagement for Aerial Navigation in Unknown Environments with Glass},
  author = {Chen, Xinyi and Zhang, Yichen and Zou, Hetai and Wang, Junzhe and Shen, Shaojie},
  journal = {IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L)},
  year = {2025},
  publisher = {IEEE},
}

Falcon: Fast autonomous aerial exploration using coverage path guidance

Yichen Zhang^*, Xinyi Chen^*, Chen Feng, and 2 more authors

* Co-first authors

IEEE Transactions on Robotics (T-RO), 2024

arXiv Bib Video Code

@article{zhang2024falcon,
  title = {Falcon: Fast autonomous aerial exploration using coverage path guidance},
  author = {Zhang, Yichen and Chen, Xinyi and Feng, Chen and Zhou, Boyu and Shen, Shaojie},
  journal = {IEEE Transactions on Robotics (T-RO)},
  year = {2024},
  publisher = {IEEE},
}

APACE: Agile and Perception-Aware Trajectory Generation for Quadrotor Flights

Xinyi Chen, Yichen Zhang, Boyu Zhou, and 1 more author

In 2024 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2024

arXiv Bib Video Code

@inproceedings{chen2024apace,
  title = {APACE: Agile and Perception-Aware Trajectory Generation for Quadrotor Flights},
  author = {Chen, Xinyi and Zhang, Yichen and Zhou, Boyu and Shen, Shaojie},
  booktitle = {2024 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)},
  pages = {17858-17864},
  year = {2024},
  organization = {IEEE},
}

Fast 3D sparse topological skeleton graph generation for mobile robot global planning

Xinyi Chen, Boyu Zhou, Jiarong Lin, and 3 more authors

In 2022 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2022

arXiv Bib Video Code

@inproceedings{chen2022fast,
  title = {Fast 3D sparse topological skeleton graph generation for mobile robot global planning},
  author = {Chen, Xinyi and Zhou, Boyu and Lin, Jiarong and Zhang, Yichen and Zhang, Fu and Shen, Shaojie},
  booktitle = {2022 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)},
  pages = {10283--10289},
  year = {2022},
  organization = {IEEE},
}