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

Dec 10, 2024 🎉 Paper Driving in the Occupancy World: Vision-Centric 4D Occupancy Forecasting and Planning via World Models for Autonomous Driving is accepted bys AAAI Oral.
Nov 6, 2024 🎉 Paper LiCROcc: Teach Radar for Accurate Semantic Occupancy Prediction using LiDAR and Camerar is accepted by 2025 IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RAL) !
Oct 2, 2024 🎉 Paper Continuously Learning, Adapting, and Improving: A Dual-Process Approach to Autonomous Driving is accepted by NeurIPS 2024 !
📢 We have also developed a closed-loop high-fidelity simulation platform called DriveArena!
Aug 5, 2024 🎉 Paper Riders: radar-infrared depth estimation for robust sensing is aceepted by 2024 IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation (TITS) !
May 1, 2024 🎉 Paper FMCW Radar on LiDAR map localization in structural urban environments is aceepted by 2024 Journal of Field Robotics (JFR) !

Selected Publications

2025

  1. 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
  2. drivearena.png
    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
  3. leapad.png
    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. 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
  5. 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. 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
  2. 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