MACS Lab's 2026 Research Highlights: Robotics, Manufacturing, and Control
It’s been a great year for the group so far! Our 2026 highlights include 11 new papers and a granted patent, with work spanning robotics, manufacturing, and control.
Conference Papers
- ICRA 2026: Alexander Tarvo, Yusen Wan, and Xu Chen. Contrastive Learning on 3D Point Clouds for Robotic Geometric Defect Detection.
- IROS 2026: Zidong Liu, Kaixin Chang, and Xu Chen. Clustering-Embedded MPPI: Avoiding Averaging-Induced Failure and Enabling Efficient Cluster Selection for Dynamic Obstacles.
- ICPR 2026: Alexander Tarvo, Colin Acton, Yusen Wan, and Xu Chen. The Good, the Bad, and the Template: Contrastive Anomaly Detection in 3D.
- CDC 2026: Zidong Liu and Xu Chen. CLIS-MPPI: Closed-Loop Model Predictive Path Integral Control with Initial-State Sampling under Execution Delay. Accepted; to appear.
- IFAC World Congress 2026: Zidong Liu, Yusen Wan, Richard Lu, Amy Santoso, Xiaohai Hu, Thomas Chu, Tianyu Jiang, Guoxiao Guo, Takenori Atsumi, and Xu Chen. PyHDD Benchmark: A Python-Based Framework for Magnetic-Head Positioning Control Systems in Hard Disk Drives.
- AIM 2026: Amy Santoso, Colin Acton, SangYoon Back, and Xu Chen. Robotic Autofocus Algorithm for Visual Inspection in Precision Manufacturing Using Focus Value and Ratio-Based Velocity Control.
Journal Papers
- Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing: Yusen Wan and Xu Chen. iLSPR: A Learning-Based Scene Point-Cloud Registration Method for Robotic Spatial Awareness in Intelligent Manufacturing. Volume 99, article 103204, 2026.
- Journal of Manufacturing Systems: Antara Banerjee, Colin Acton, and Xu Chen. Perception-Driven Admittance-Based Surface Alignment for Robotic Visual Inspection.
- Journal of Manufacturing Systems: Yusen Wan, Zeyuan Chen, Qianshi Zou, and Xu Chen. R-SLPR: Region-Based Small-to-Large Point-Cloud Registration with Contrastive Learning.
- ASME Letters in Dynamic Systems and Control: Xiaohai Hu, Zhengyang Xu, Thomas Chu, and Xu Chen. Simultaneous Continuous Trajectory Optimization for Underactuated Rehabilitation Exoskeletons.
MECC Rising Star Presentation
Yusen Wan and Xu Chen’s iLSPR: Learning-Based Scene Point Cloud Registration for Robotic Manufacturing Systems is also featured as a Rising Star presentation at the 2026 Modeling, Estimation and Control Conference (MECC).
Granted Patent
Mark Gerges and Xu Chen’s Adaptive Illuminance Control was granted as U.S. Patent 12,610,446 B2 on April 21, 2026 (UW reference 49201.03US2).
Congratulations to all our students and collaborators!