YUKAI MA

Autonomous Driving | Robotics Researcher

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I am a visiting researcher at the Department of Computer Science, University of California, Los Angeles, advised by Bolei Zhou. I am studying for PhD degree in Zhejiang University since 2021, where I was a member of the APRIL Lab under the guidance of Dr. Yong Liu. I am interning in ADLab at Shanghai AI Laboratory from 2023 to 2025. Prior to this, I got my bachelor’s degree from Jianxing campus of Zhejiang University of Technology in 2021 under the guidance of Prof. Li Yu.

Research Interests

The following are my current research interests:

  • Autonomous Driving
  • Emobodied AI
  • Mobile Robots

News

Selected Publications

2025

  1. s2e.png
    From Seeing to Experiencing: Scaling Navigation Foundation Models with Reinforcement Learning
    Honglin He*, Yukai Ma*, Wayne Wu, and 1 more author
    Arxiv, 2025
  2. ACMMM
    CogDDN: A Cognitive Demand-Driven Navigation with Decision Optimization and Dual-Process Thinking
    Yuehao Huang, Liang Liu, Shuangming Lei, and 7 more authors
    In Proceedings of the 33rd ACM International Conference on Multimedia, 2025
  3. IROS
    L2COcc: Lightweight Camera-Centric Semantic Scene Completion via Distillation of LiDAR Model
    Ruoyu Wang, Yukai Ma, Yi Yao, and 5 more authors
    2025
  4. AAAI
    Driving in the occupancy world: Vision-centric 4d occupancy forecasting and planning via world models for autonomous driving
    Yu Yang, Jianbiao Mei, Yukai Ma, and 5 more authors
    In Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 2025
  5. leapvad.png
    LeapVAD: A Leap in Autonomous Driving via Cognitive Perception and Dual-Process Thinking
    Yukai Ma, Tiantian Wei, Naiting Zhong, and 6 more authors
    arXiv preprint arXiv:2501.08168, 2025

2024

  1. licrocc.png
    LiCROcc: Teach radar for accurate semantic occupancy prediction using lidar and camera
    Yukai Ma, Jianbiao Mei, Xuemeng Yang, and 6 more authors
    IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 2024
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    DriveArena: A Closed-loop Generative Simulation Platform for Autonomous Driving
    Xuemeng Yang*, Licheng Wen*, Yukai Ma*, and 11 more authors
    arXiv preprint arXiv:2408.00415, 2024
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    Continuously Learning, Adapting, and Improving: A Dual-Process Approach to Autonomous Driving
    Jianbiao Mei*, Yukai Ma*, Xuemeng Yang, and 8 more authors
    Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS), 2024
  4. RadarCam-Depth: Radar-Camera Fusion for Depth Estimation with Learned Metric Scale
    Han Li*, Yukai Ma*, Yaqing Gu, and 3 more authors
    In 2024 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2024
  5. riders.png
    RIDERS: Radar-Infrared Depth Estimation for Robust Sensing
    Han Li*, Yukai Ma*, Yuehao Huang, and 4 more authors
    IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, 2024
  6. JFR
    FMCW Radar on LiDAR map localization in structural urban environments
    Yukai Ma*, Han Li*, Xiangrui Zhao, and 4 more authors
    Journal of Field Robotics, 2024

2023

  1. Coco-LIC: Continuous-Time Tightly-Coupled LiDAR-Inertial-Camera Odometry Using Non-Uniform B-Spline
    Xiaolei Lang, Chao Chen, Kai Tang, and 4 more authors
    IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 2023
  2. RAL
    Geo-Localization With Transformer-Based 2D-3D Match Network
    Laijian Li*, Yukai Ma*, Kai Tang, and 5 more authors
    IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 2023
  3. rolm.png
    RoLM: Radar on LiDAR Map Localization
    Yukai Ma, Xiangrui Zhao, Han Li, and 3 more authors
    In 2023 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2023

2022

  1. Ctrl-VIO: Continuous-Time Visual-Inertial Odometry for Rolling Shutter Cameras
    Xiaolei Lang, Jiajun Lv, Jianxin Huang, and 3 more authors
    IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 2022