Smart people in focus: Yuchen Hu

Meet Yuchen Hu, Doctoral Researcher at Smart Systems | University of Turku, part of the Intelligent Work Machines – IWM Doctoral Pilot programme!

How Can Autonomous Navigation Systems Adapt to Real-World Challenges?

Yuchen’s research develops novel algorithmic frameworks to improve the performance of autonomous navigation systems in dynamic environments.

What are your interests?
“I am passionate about path planning and tracking for autonomous driving and robotics. Outside of work, I’m a cat lover, enjoy practicing Muay Thai, and like playing Switch games.”

What is your research about?
“My research focuses on developing advanced navigation systems for autonomous driving. Existing path planning and tracking methods often struggle to balance tracking accuracy, stability, and passenger comfort under varying driving conditions, leading to suboptimal performance. To address these challenges, my work integrates learning-based approaches with control theory to develop algorithms that dynamically adapt strategies to changing environmental and operational factors. Drawing from my experience as a planning and control algorithm engineer in the autonomous driving industry, I focus on designing adaptive frameworks that optimize multiple performance metrics while ensuring computational efficiency and practical feasibility.”

Yuchen’s work is supervised by Prof. Wallace Moreira Bessa and part of Intelligent Work Machines – IWM Doctoral Pilot programme, which connects academic research excellence with relevant industrial research and development challenges, accelerating industrial renewal in the machine industry.