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Jerry (Qilong) Cheng
I’m currently a Robotics Ph.D. Student at
NYU working on
Embodied Generative Control: Unified RL and Diffusion Policies for Locomotion and Dexterous Manipulation,
with prior work in Research Interests
I aim to integrate Universal Manipulation Interface–scale perception with torque-level reinforcement learning
to handle contact, embodiment, and whole-body loco-manipulation in real-world settings.
• How do we fuse foundation models with dynamics-aware control? • How can vision, tactile, and proprioception be integrated into a single unified policy? • How do IL and RL merge to generalize beyond demonstrations? • How do we co-design hardware, sensing, and control to make learning scalable? I'm currently looking for PhD opportunities or industry positions in Robotics starting Fall 2026! |
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Coffee ChatI'm always open to chatting about Robotics, Research, Startups, or just connecting! Feel free to grab a time on my calendar below. Location: Any Cafe with Enough Clearance for a 6-DOF Robot Arm Schedule a Coffee |
Education |
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Sep 2025 – Aug 2029
Sep 2023 – Aug 2025
University of Toronto
B.A.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering Minor in Robotics & Business — Senior GPA: 3.94 / 4.00 Aug 2017 – Jun 2023
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Publications | |
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Evolution of Humanoid Locomotion Control
Y. Gu, G. Shi, F. Shi, I. Chang, Y. Wang, Q. Cheng, Z. Olkin, I. Lopez-Sanchez, Y. Feng, J. Zhang, A. D. Ames, H. Su, and K. Sreenath A comprehensive review and perspective of humanoid locomotion control methods, spanning classical to learning-based approaches to emerging trends. |
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A Certifiably Correct Algorithm for Generalized Robot-World and Hand-Eye Calibration
E. Wise, P. Kaveti, Q. Cheng, W. Wang, H. Singh, J. Kelly, D. M. Rosen, and M. Giamou IJRR (Under Review), 2025 Certifiably correct calibration achieving globally optimal robot-world and hand-eye alignment under general conditions. |
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Master's Thesis: Design and Development of IRIS: An Intelligent Robotic Imaging System — A Low-Cost, 3D-Printed Cinema Robot Arm for Dynamic Shot Automation
Q. Cheng, M. Mackay, A. Bereyhi Master of Engineering Thesis, University of Toronto, 2025 Low-cost, fully 3D-printed 6-DoF cinema robot arm (IRIS) with FOC actuators, differential wrist, and a vision-conditioned imitation-learning stack in ROS. |
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VibraForge: A Scalable Prototyping Toolkit For Creating Spatialized Vibrotactile Feedback Systems
B. Huang, S. Ren, Y. Luo, Q. Cheng, H. Cai, Y. Sang, M. Sousa, P. H. Dietz, and D. Wigdor CHI, 2025 An open-source toolkit enabling rapid design and deployment of large-scale vibrotactile feedback systems for spatialized haptic interactions. |
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AeroHaptix: A Wearable Vibrotactile Feedback System for Enhancing Collision Avoidance in UAV Teleoperation
B. Huang, Z. Wang, Q. Cheng, S. Ren, H. Cai, A. Alvarez Valdivia, K. Mahadevan, and D. Wigdor IEEE RA-L, 2024 Introduces a wearable vibrotactile system integrated with UAV teleoperation, leveraging control barrier functions for safe human-drone interaction. |
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Extrinsic Calibration of 2D Millimetre-Wavelength Radar Pairs Using Ego-Velocity Estimates
Q. Cheng, E. Wise, and J. Kelly IEEE AIM, 2023 Proposes a calibration framework for radar-radar pairs leveraging ego-motion cues without overlapping views for improved pose estimation accuracy. |
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Spatiotemporal Calibration of 3D Millimetre-Wavelength Radar-Camera Pairs
E. Wise, Q. Cheng, and J. Kelly IEEE TRO, 2022 Introduces continuous-time B-spline calibration for radar-camera systems, outperforming state-of-the-art methods in robustness and precision. |
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Weakly Supervised Semantic and Attentive Data Mixing Augmentation for Fine-Grained Visual Categorization
M. He, Q. Cheng, and G. Qi IEEE Access, 2022 Proposes a weakly supervised attention-guided data augmentation strategy for fine-grained image classification tasks. |
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Generative Design for Self-Balancing Unicycle Robot in Additive Manufacturing
J. Chen, Q. Cheng, and M. Han SPIE ACAIB, 2022 Applies generative design and additive manufacturing techniques to develop a self-balancing unicycle robot prototype. |
[11/2025] Graduated with a Master's of Engineering degree at the University of Toronto.

[10/2025] Attended IROS 2025 in Hangzhou, China and presented “AeroHaptix”.



[04/2025] Attended CHI 2025 in Yokohama, Japan and presented “VibraForge”.


[11/2024] Presented at ARIA 2024 in Toronto with our VibraForge toolkits.




[07/2024] Presented monocular depth estimation work at the Toronto Robotics Conference 2024.




[11/2023] Demonstrated “VibraForge” at ARIA 2023 in Toronto.





[06/2023] Graduated from the University of Toronto with a Bachelor’s of Applied Science.

Selected Projects | |
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TINTIN: RL-Based Lunar Rocket Landing
2025 6-DoF variable-mass lander in MuJoCo with 2-DoF gimbaled thrust; PID baseline vs PPO policy; pose-targeted touchdown and fuel-efficiency metrics. |
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Monocular Depth Estimation for Human-Robot Locomotion
2024 Monocular depth pipeline for human-robot walking environments: ZoeDepth baseline, metric reprojection to 3D point clouds, and iterative RANSAC to extract stair planes and dimensions. |
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CLEAR-Net: Cart-Pole Learning with Enhanced Adaptive Reinforcement Network
2024 Compared tabular Q-learning, DQN, PPO, and SAC on noisy Cart-Pole; designed noise-robust wrappers, tuned hyperparameters, and analyzed robustness under disturbances and varying noise levels. |
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Geometric Nonlinear Control for Biped Walking
2024 Virtual Holonomic Constraints with polynomial gait design, feedback linearization, and terrain generalization to slopes and stairs. |
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Localization for Aerospace Vehicles (IMU + Stereo)
2023 Batch Gauss-Newton fusion with EKF; compared batch vs sliding-window estimators for trajectory accuracy. |
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Mobile Robot Mechatronics Design Project
2023 MATLAB, SolidWorks — Designed a 3D-printed Arduino-based mobile robot in Fusion 360; implemented localization and obstacle-avoidance for maze navigation in MATLAB; commanded the robot via Bluetooth. |
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8×8×8 LED Cube Embedded System
2022 ESP32-based driver with SPI multiplexing; API control; interactive 3D Snake and Pong demos. |
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Turtlebot2 SLAM, Navigation & Perception
2022 Gmapping, frontier exploration, PID control; OpenCV perception and a CNN for 7-class emotion recognition. |
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Electric Formula Racing Car Drive-train
2022 Planetary gearbox quadrupling torque at >90% efficiency; kinematics, stress, thermal, and vibration analyses. |
Startups |
Motion Picture Robotics (Cinema Robot Arm)Low-cost, 3D-printed 6-DoF cinema robot arm with FOC actuators and a vision-conditioned imitation-learning stack for dynamic camera moves. GouPals Inc. (Cross-border Shopper Network)Connects buyers with travelers to source hard-to-find goods across countries, with integrated guidance for purchase, delivery, and verification. |
Technical Skills
Software & Tools: Python, C++, MATLAB, ROS, MuJoCo, Isaac Sim, IsaacLab, PyTorch, Docker, Linux |