Zhaoming Xie

zxie@theaiinstitute.com

I am interested in creating "atheletic intelligence". I work on real-to-sim by creating virtual characters that can move like animals or humans. I also work on sim-to-real, by transferring simulated behaviors to real robots.

I am currently a research scientist at the AI Institute. I was a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford University, working with Professor Karen Liu. I finished my PhD degree in computer science at the University of British Columbia, advised by Professor Michiel van de Panne. I completed my BEng in Computer Engineering at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and MS in Electrical Engineering and Mathematics at the Georgia Institute of Technology. I also spent time at NVIDIA, Intel, Electronic Arts and Sanctuary AI.

GitHub / Google Scholar

Publications

PDP: Physics-Based Character Animation via Diffusion Policy. Takara Truong, Michael Piseno, Zhaoming Xie, C Karen Liu. In Proceedings of SIGGRAPH Asia, 2024
Paper / Video / Website
Learning to Design 3D Printable Adaptations on Everyday Objects for Robot Manipulation. Michelle Guo, Ziang Liu, Stephen Tian, Zhaoming Xie, Jiajun Wu, C Karen Liu. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2024
Paper
Hierarchical Planning and Control for Box Loco-Manipulation. Zhaoming Xie, Jonathan Tseng, Sebastian Starke, Michiel van de Panne, C Karen Liu. Symposium on Computer Animation (SCA), 2023
Paper / Video / Code
Learning Bipedal Walking for Humanoids with Current Feedback. Rohan P Singh, Zhaoming Xie, Pierre Gergondet, Fumio Kanehiro. IEEE Access, 2023
Paper / Video
OPT-Mimic: Imitation of Optimized Trajectories for Dynamic Quadruped Behaviors. Yuni Fuchioka, Zhaoming Xie, Michiel van de Panne. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2023
Project Page / Paper / Video / Code
Learning Soccer Juggling Skills with Layer-wise Mixture-of-Experts. Zhaoming Xie, Sebastian Starke, Hung Yu Ling, Michiel van de Panne. In Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2022
Project Page / Paper / Video / Code
GLiDE: Generalizable Quadrupedal Locomotion in Diverse Environments with a Centroidal Model. Zhaoming Xie, Xingye Da, Buck Babich, Animesh Garg, Michiel van de Panne. Workshop on the Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics (WAFR), 2022
Paper / Video
Flexible Motion Optimization with Modulated Assistive Forces. Nam Hee Kim*, Hung Yu Ling*, Zhaoming Xie, Michiel van de Panne. Symposium on Computer Animation (SCA), 2021.
Paper / Video
Dynamics Randomization Revisited: A Case Study for Quadrupedal Locomotion. Zhaoming Xie, Xingye Da, Michiel van de Panne, Buck Babich, Animesh Garg. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2021
Paper / Video
Learning a Contact-Adaptive Controller for Robust, Efficient Legged Locomotion. Xinye Da, Zhaoming Xie, David Hoeller, Byron Boots, Animashree Anandkumar, Yuke Zhu, Buck Babich, Animesh Garg. Conference on Robot Learning (CoRL), 2020.
Paper / Video
ALLSTEPS: Curriculum-driven Learning of Stepping Stone Skills. Zhaoming Xie*, Hung Yu Ling*, Nam Hee Kim, Michiel van de Panne. Symposium on Computer Animation (SCA), 2020. Best Paper Award
Paper / Project / Code
Learning to Correspond Dynamical Systems. Nam Hee Kim, Zhaoming Xie, Michiel van de Panne. Learning for Dynamics and Control (L4DC), 2020.
Paper / Website / Video / Code
Learning Locomotion Skills for Cassie: Iterative Design and Sim-to-Real. Zhaoming Xie, Patrick Clary, Jeremy Dao, Pedro Morais, Jonathan Hurst, Michiel van de Panne. Conference on Robot Learning (CoRL), 2019.
Paper / Video / Code
On Learning Symmetric Locomotion. Farzad Abdolhosseini, Hung Yu Ling, Zhaoming Xie, Xue Bin Peng, Michiel van de Panne. Motion, Interaction and Games (MIG), 2019. Also presented at Workshop on Deep Reinforcement Learning (NeurIPS) 2019.
Paper / Talk / Poster / Code
Feedback Control For Cassie With Deep Reinforcement Learning. Zhaoming Xie, Glen Berseth, Patrick Clary, Jonathan Hurst, Michiel van de Panne. IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2018.
Paper / Video
Differential Dynamic Programming with Nonlinear Constraints. Zhaoming Xie, C. Karen Liu, Kris Hauser. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2017.
Paper
Simulation-based design of dynamic controllers for humanoid balancing. Jie Tan, Zhaoming Xie, Byron Boots, C. Karen Liu. IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2016.
Paper / Video

Service

Reviewer for ICRA, IROS, RSS, CoRL, Neurips, ICLR