Kai Yu

Kai Yu

Robotics Engineer

Building systems that perceive, learn, and move.

M.S.E. Robotics · University of Pennsylvania

Blog & paper collectionReading notes, concepts, and writing

About

I'm an M.S.E. Robotics student at the University of Pennsylvania, working on robot learning and autonomy. My research spans generative world models with Jiatao Gu's group, image-based policy learning at xLAB, and perception and control for HAMR at ModLab.

I'm currently interested in using in-context learning and world models to build robotic policies that adapt to new tasks and environments.

Research

  1. Generative World Models

    Researching generative world models and conditional image generation, alongside in-context learning and on-policy distillation for robotic policies.

  2. Image Editing Policy Research

    Researching learning signals for image-editing policies through conditional generative modeling. Developing robot policies by minimizing differences between latent representations of current and goal images.

  3. HAMR: Holonomic Mobile Robotics

    Developing HAMR perception and control tools, including vision-based motion estimation of a custom ball caster, visual SLAM, localization, sensor integration, and PID control. Developed a simulator and path-planning algorithms to study mobile robot behavior.

Experience

  1. Robotics Intern

    Implemented autonomous yard patrols using a quadruped robot, enabling waypoint navigation, dynamic obstacle avoidance, sensor-based image capture, and web-based monitoring and control. Created full-stack AI guest check-in system, supporting visitor/employee appointments and real-time status tracking.

    • C++
    • Unitree
    • ROS2
    • React
  2. Software Engineer Intern

    Developed a Python web scraper using Scrapy to extract and process over 100 million data hashes, storing results in PostgreSQL. Authored a software requirements specification outlining system functionality, technical requirements, and project scope.

    • Python
    • PostgreSQL

Selected projects

Dual-camera caster tracking with geometry overlays and rotation estimates
1 / 3

ModLab · Mobile robotics

HAMR

Connecting caster mechanics, visual sensing, and feedback control in a holonomic mobile robot. Work spans dual-camera caster tracking, depth-camera localization, and ROS 2 / embedded PID control.

  • ROS 2
  • Computer Vision
  • SLAM
  • PID Control
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A frozen OpenPI policy combined with learned SAC or PPO action corrections
1 / 3

Robot learning · Reinforcement learning

RL-VLA

A residual reinforcement learning framework around a frozen vision-language-action policy. SAC and PPO learn bounded action corrections through a shared training and evaluation pipeline.

  • PyTorch
  • SAC / PPO
  • OpenPI
  • LIBERO
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Kai Yu Robotics & machine learning