Dr Cunjia Liu

BEng, MSc, PhD

  • Professor of Robotics and Autonomous Systems
Publications
Google Scholar
Headshot of Cunjia

Background

Cunjia Liu is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Aeronautical and Automotive Engineering (AAE) at Loughborough University. 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 Loughborough University 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, Mobile 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 Bioscience 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.