Shipeng Liu

Hi! I am Shipeng (Henry) Liu, a Ph.D. student in RoboLAND at the University of Southern California (USC). Before joining USC, I obtained my Bachelor's degree in Engineering from Tongji University and later worked at SenseTime on autonomous driving simulation. I am currently advised by Dr. Feifei Qian. My research interests include human-robot teaming, adaptive embodied agents, and embodied active sensing during locomotion. I work on human-robot decision-making algorithms for the LASSIE team (Legged Autonomous Surface Science In Analogue Environments) and on multi-robot cooperation for the TRUSSES Team (TRUSSES: Temporarily, Robots Unite to Surmount Sandy Entrapments, then Separate). I also had the fortune to work with Dr. Gaurav S. Sukhatme for Human-AI interaction.

[Email] · [CV/Resume] · [Github] · [Linkedin] · [Twitter] · [Google Scholar]

News

2025/6/24: Robotics: Science and Systems event:
- RoboLAND participated in RSS!
- I presented his paper at RSS - Adaptive Locomotion on Mud through Proprioceptive Sensing of Substrate Properties
- Our lab presented a lab tour and a live robot demo at RSS.

[2025-6] Our paper "Characterizing Robot-Ground Interactions for Autonomous Lunar Construction" has been accepted to the 19th International Symposium on Experimental Robotics (ISER'25)

[2025-5] I passed the qualifying exam, now become a Ph.D. candidate!

[2025-4] Our paper "Adaptive Locomotion on Mud through Proprioceptive Sensing of Substrate Properties " is accepted to Robotic Systems and Science(RSS)!
[2025-4] Presented our paper "Scout-Rover cooperation: online terrain strength mapping and traversal risk estimation" at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC).

[2025-4] We performed a live robot demo at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC), demonstrating the robot's capability to measure geotechnical properties of the regolith from every step along a traverse by sensing the force from its legs!.

[2025-3] Presenting at March Meeting of the American Physical Society (APS'25)

[2025-2] Attended AAAI 2025.

[2024-12] One paper got accepted to WMAC @ AAAI 2025.

[2024-12] One paper got accepted to LM4Plan @ AAAI 2025.

[2024-5] Presented at ICRA 2024 in Yokohama, Japan!

[2024-3] My paper "Modelling Experts' Sampling Strategy to Balance Multiple Objectives During Scientific Explorations" got Honorable Mention at HRI' 24!

[2024-3] Presented at American Physics Society March Meeting! (APS'25)

[2023-12] My paper "Modelling Experts' Sampling Strategy to Balance Multiple Objectives During Scientific Explorations" was accepted to HRI '24: Proceedings of the 2024 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction!

[2023-9] My paper "Adaptation of flipper-mud interactions enables effective terrestrial locomotion on muddy substrates" was accepted to IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L)!

[2023-9] Presented Southern California Robotics Symposium!

[2023-8] Team LASSIE (Legged Autonomous Surface Science In Analogue Environments) completed the 1st field testing at Mt Hood OR!

[2023-7] MeetScript was accepted to the 26th ACM Conference On Computer-Supported Cooperative Work And Social Computing!

[2023-7] My paper "Understanding Human Dynamic Sampling Objectives to Enable Robot-assisted Scientific Decision Making" was accepted to ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction (THRI)

[2023-3] Team LASSIE (Legged Autonomous Surface Science In Analogue Environments) completed the 1st field testing at WhiteSands, NM!

[2022-5] Presented at IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) Workshop, May 2022.

[2021-12] Presented at American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, New Orleans, LA, 2021.

[2021-9] Moved to LA. Excited to join USC ECE RoboLAND to pursue my Ph.D.

Research

Legged robots that feel, learn, and team: embodied active sensing meets embodied intelligent decision making.

My research lies at the intersection of field robotics, embodied intelligence, embodied active sensing, and human-robot collaboration.

While traditional active sensing emphasizes where a robot moves and relies on exteroceptive sensors, my work explores how legged locomotion and versatile leg–terrain interactions can serve as sensors, using force feedback and proprioception to infer terrain properties. I extend this to embodied teaming, where robots adapt their sensing and behavior to support human field scientists.

I call this direction Embodied Active Sensing and Intelligence—treating locomotion itself as a medium for sensing, learning, and collaboration.

I’m currently on the job market and open to opportunities in both academia and industry. Here is my Research statement.

Publications

[10] Rachel Holladay, Shivangi Misra, Mason Mitchell, Akshay Ram Panyam, Erica Pauline Santos, J. Diego Caporale, Shipeng Liu, Yifeng Zhang, John Ruck, Douglas Jerolmack, Feifei Qian, Mark Yim, and Cynthia Sung. Characterizing Robot-Ground Interactions for Autonomous Lunar Construction, 19th International Symposium on Experimental Robotics (ISER'25)

[9] Shipeng Liu, Meghana Sagare, Shubham Patil, Feifei Qian, Bio-inspired tail oscillation enables fast crawling on soft sand, submitted to IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RAL).

[8] Shipeng Liu, FNU Shrutika, Boshen Zhang, Zhehui Huang, Gaurav Sukhatme, and Feifei Qian, Effect of Adaptive Communication Support on LLM-powered Human-AI Collaboration. submitted to ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction (THRI). [Arxiv] [PDF]

[7] Shipeng Liu, Jiaze Tang, Siyuan Meng, and Feifei Qian, Adaptive Locomotion on Mud through Proprioceptive Sensing of Substrate Properties. Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS), 2025. [Arxiv] [Video] [Link]

[6] Shipeng Liu, Boshen Zhang, Zhehui Huang, Benchmark Real-time Adaptation and Communication Capabilities of Embodied Agent in Collaborative Scenarios. [Arxiv] [PDF]

[5] Zhen Zhang, Jintao Lai, Fangkai Wang, Xiaoguang Yang, Shipeng Liu, Mingyu Zhang, A Trajectory-Based Control Strategy with Vehicle Cooperation and Absolute Transit Priority at an Isolated Intersection. In Journal of Advanced Transportation 2024.[Link]

[4] Shipeng Liu, Cristina G. Wilson, Zachary I. Lee, and Feifei Qian, Modeling Experts’ Sampling Strategy to Balance Multiple Objectives During Scientific Explorations. In Proceedings of the 2024 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI ’24). [Link] [PDF] [Web interface 1] [Web interface 2] 🏆Best Paper Finalist(5%)

[3] Shipeng Liu, Boyuan Huang, and Feifei Qian, Adaptation of flipper-mud interactions enables effective terrestrial locomotion on muddy substrates. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L)[Link] [PDF] [Video]

Presented at IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), May 2024 Presented at Bulletin of the American Physical Society, March 2023 [LINK]

[2] Shipeng Liu, Cristina G. Wilson, Bhaskar Krishnamachari, and Feifei Qian, Understanding Human Dynamic Sampling Objectives to Enable Robot-assisted Scientific Decision-Making. ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction (THRI). [Link] [PDF] [Web interface]

Presented at ICRA Workshop, May 2022 [POSTER] [PDF]Presented at American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, New Orleans, LA, 2021. [LINK] [POSTER]

[1] Xinyue Chen, Shuo Li, Shipeng Liu, Robin Fowler, Xu Wang, MeetScript: Designing Transcript-based Interactions to Support Active Participation in Group Video Meetings. The 26th ACM Conference On Computer-Supported Cooperative Work And Social Computing (CSCW), 2023. [Link] [PDF] [Video]