Professor Cunjia Liu

BEng, MSc, PhD

  • Professor of Robotics and Autonomous Systems
Publications
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Cunjia Liu

Background

Cunjia Liu is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Aeronautical and Automotive Engineering (AAE) at 麻豆視頻_麻豆直播_麻豆传媒官网. He received his PhD in autonomous aerial vehicles from this department in 2011. After completing PhD, he worked at Triumph Actuation & Motion Control Systems-UK Ltd. as a control system engineer and then returned to the Autonomous Systems Laboratory at 麻豆視頻_麻豆直播_麻豆传媒官网 as a Research Associate. He was appointed as a Lecturer in Unmanned Vehicles, or Flight Dynamics and Control in October 2013 and became a Senior Lecturer in 2018.

Qualifications:

  • PhD in Autonomous Vehicles - Loughborough 2011
  • Member of IEEE
  • Fellow of Higher Education Academy
  • Certificate of Practical Flight Assessment for Rotorcraft UAVs

Key awards:

  • IMechE Charles Sharpe Beecher Prize 

Outline of current main research interests:

  • Control engineering: Model predictive control, Disturbance observer based control.
  • Information fusion: Bayesian learning, Particle filtering, Data assimilation.
  • Unmanned vehicles: Advanced flight control, Path planning, Multi-vehicle coordination
  • Application domain: Unmanned vehicles, Smart farming, mobiles sensor for CBRN response, Machine learning for intelligent mobility.

Grants and contracts:

  • DSTL: Autonomous CB source-term estimation in complex environments, PI, 11/2019 - 02/2022, Phase 1 £85k + Phase 2 £183k.
  • STFC: Space-enabled crop disease management service via crop spraying drones [SCENE-CAD] (ST/V00137X/1), PI, 02/2020 - 03/2022, £404k.
  • ADD (South Korea): Disturbance observer based control for unconventional UAV, PI, 12/2019 - 12/2021, £320K.
  • DASA: Autonomous search for chemical release with a pocket-sized drone [scenesearch] (ACC500113), PI, 10/2017 - 03/2019, £375k.
  • EPSRC: Autonomous landing of a helicopter at sea: advanced control in adverse conditions (EP/P012868/1), PI, 06/2017 - 10/2018, £101k.
  • STFC: Enabling wide area persistent remote sensing for agriculture applications (ST/N006852/1), Co-I, 05/2016 - 12/2019, £1.2m.

Current teaching responsibilities:

  • TTD106 Autonomous Vehicles (module leader)
  • TTP409 Autonomous Vehicle Systems (module leader)
  • TTC057 Flight Control Systems
  • TTC012 Spacecraft Engineering
  • Final Year Projects

Current administrative responsibilities

  • Research Director

Recent publications:

Cao, H, Shen, J, Liu, C, Zhu, B, Zhao, S (2024) Motion planning for aerial pick-and-place with geometric feasibility constraints, IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, ISSN: 1545-5955. DOI: 10.1109/tase.2024.3382296.

Li, Z, Chen, W-H, Yang, J, Liu, C (2024) Cooperative active learning-based dual control for exploration and exploitation in autonomous search, IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems, ISSN: 2162-237X. DOI: 10.1109/TNNLS.2024.3349467.

Li, Z, Deng, X, Lan, Y, Liu, C, Qing, J (2023) Fruit tree canopy segmentation from UAV orthophoto maps based on a lightweight improved U-Net, Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 217, 108538, ISSN: 0168-1699. DOI: 10.1016/j.compag.2023.108538.

Liu, Y, Harvey, C, Hamlyn, FE, Liu, C (2023) Bayesian estimation and reconstruction of marine surface contaminant dispersion, Science of the Total Environment, 907(2024), 167973, ISSN: 0048-9697. DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.167973.

Yan, Y, Wang, X, Marshall, B, Liu, C, Yang, J, Chen, W-H (2023) Surviving disturbances: a predictive control framework with guaranteed safety, Automatica, 158, 111238, ISSN: 0005-1098. DOI: 10.1016/j.automatica.2023.111238.

Hu, J, Li, J, Hou, Z, Jiang, J, Liu, C, Chu, L, Huang, Y, Zhang, Y (2023) Potential auto-driving threat: Universal rain-removal attack, iScience, 26(9), DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.107393.

Liu, Y, Coombes, M, Liu, C (2023) Mesh-based consensus distributed particle filtering for sensor networks, IEEE Transactions on Signal and Information Processing over Networks, 9, pp.346-356, DOI: 10.1109/tsipn.2023.3278469.

Cao, H, Li, Y, Liu, C, Zhao, S (2023) ESO-based robust and high-precision tracking control for aerial manipulation, IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, ISSN: 1545-5955. DOI: 10.1109/tase.2023.3260874.

Nanavati, R, Meng, Y, Coombes, M, Liu, C (2023) Generalized data-driven optimal path planning framework for uniform coverage missions using crop spraying UAVs, Precision Agriculture, 24(4), pp.1497-1525, ISSN: 1385-2256. DOI: 10.1007/s11119-023-09999-3.

Hu, Y, Deng, X, Lan, Y, Chen, X, Long, Y, Liu, C (2023) Detection of Rice Pests Based on Self-Attention Mechanism and Multi-Scale Feature Fusion, Insects, 14(3), pp.280-280, DOI: 10.3390/insects14030280.

View publications in our central  publications database

External collaborators:

  • MOD Dstl
  • Create Technologies Limited
  • Blue Bear Systems Research Ltd
  • Roke Manor Research
  • Frazer Nash Consultancy
  • AVL Powertrain UK Ltd
  • NIAB EMR
  • Centre for Agriculture and Biosescience International

External roles and appointments:

  • PhD examiner: University of Bristol; Cranfield University; Queensland University of Technology; University of Manchester
  • MSc Programme examiner: University of Plymouth
  • Regular reviewer for academic journals, e.g. IEEE TCST, IEEE TIE, IEEE TIV, IEEE TAES, Automatica, etc.