Liang Zhang

Liang Zhang

Associate Professor

School of Electrical Engineering and Automation, Anhui University

Hefei, Anhui, China

About me

I am an Associate Professor at the School of Electrical Engineering and Automation, Anhui University, where I supervise doctoral and master's students. My research focuses on multi-robot systems, including swarm control, cooperative perception, and information-driven planning in real-world environments. I received my Ph.D. in Aeronautical and Astronautical Science and Technology from Harbin Institute of Technology in November 2021. From August 2018 to August 2019, I undertook CSC-funded joint doctoral research with Prof. Roland Siegwart at the Autonomous Systems Lab, ETH Zurich.

Research interests

  • Distributed coordination and control of multi-robot systems and UAV swarms
  • Cooperative localization, positioning-service deployment, and coverage control
  • Cooperative perception, information-driven planning, and autonomous exploration
  • Intelligent robotic actuators and motion control

Appointments and education

  • Nov 2021 - presentSchool of Electrical Engineering and Automation, Anhui University; current position: Associate Professor
  • Nov 2021Ph.D., Aeronautical and Astronautical Science and Technology, Harbin Institute of Technology
  • Aug 2018 - Aug 2019CSC-funded joint doctoral research, Autonomous Systems Lab, ETH Zurich; advisor: Prof. Roland Siegwart
  • Sep 2011 - Jun 2015B.Eng. in Automation, Shandong University

Projects as principal investigator

  • National Natural Science Foundation of China, Young Scientists Fund: Distributed resilient deployment of large-scale pseudolite PNT systems in GNSS-denied environments
  • State Key Laboratory Open Fund: Optimal pseudolite-swarm deployment for cooperative navigation in lunar in-situ construction
  • Key University Research Project, Department of Education of Anhui Province: Rapid localization and mapping for unmanned swarms in constrained environments
  • Industry-sponsored project: An integrated communication, navigation, sensing, telemetry, and control system for new-energy UAV swarms
  • Industry-sponsored project: A disturbance-resistant UAV flight-control system for stand-off tracking

Academic service

  • Youth member, Space Intelligence Committee, Chinese Society of Space Research
  • Member, IEEE RAS Technical Committee on Multi-Robot Systems
  • Senior Member, Chinese Society of Astronautics; Member, Chinese Association of Automation
  • Session chair at YAC 2023 and IFAC ACA 2025; reviewer for international journals

Awards and recognition

  • First and Second Prizes, Anhui Provincial Teaching Achievement Awards
  • Best Reviewer, IFAC ACA 2025
  • Outstanding Young Professional Teacher, Anhui Robotics Society
  • Outstanding Advisor, Anhui Division of the Contemporary Undergraduate Mathematical Contest in Modeling
  • Supervised a student paper receiving an outstanding paper award at a sub-forum of the Third International Moon Day main event, 2024

Student supervision

I supervise doctoral and master's students. Graduates have pursued further study at universities in China and abroad or joined companies including Conch Cement and ChangXin Memory Technologies. I also mentor undergraduate research and innovation projects; student teams have received more than 20 national and provincial competition awards, and undergraduates have co-authored two research papers under my supervision.

Selected granted patents

  • Infrared-guided landing device and method. ZL202411305216.9 · 2025-09-26
  • Camera deployment and selection for multi-camera cooperative localization. ZL202411913152.0 · 2025-12-09
  • Multi-rover coverage in an a priori unknown environment. ZL202511100975.6 · 2025-10-17
  • Time-sensitive coverage control for heterogeneous mobile robot swarms. ZL202211630146.5 · 2023-03-21
  • Multi-LiDAR calibration and fusion mapping for autonomous driving in complex environments. ZL202410268553.9 · 2024-05-31

English patent titles are translations of the Chinese granted patent titles.