Chaoyang Song
Associate Professor of Robotics
Research Interests
Professor Song is a pioneer in the field of physical intelligence for vision-based deformable perception and overconstrained robophysical learning in amphibious interactions. His research interests include the mechanism of limb evolution via learning-based robophysics, uniting the study of limb mechanisms, interactive skills, and operational scenarios to develop transformative technologies for terrestrial and aquatic applications.
Email
Prior to joining MBZUAI, Professor Song worked at the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) as an Assistant Professor of Robotics and an Adjunct Professor of Computer Science, leading the Design and Learning Research Group. Under his supervision, four doctoral and seven master's students graduated. Before that, he was appointed as a Lecturer at Monash University.
Professor Song worked as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as well as the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD). He has been serving as an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Robotics (T-RO) since 2025 and the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) since 2023. His works have been published in high-impact robotics journals such as IJRR, Science Robotics, and T-RO, Adv. Intel. Syst., and peer-reviewed conferences including CoRL, WAFR, ISRR, ICRA, and IROS CASE. He is also a recipient of the UNESCO-ICHEI Higher Education Digitalization Pioneer Case Award for developing the DeepClaw Toolkit and the Best Healthcare Automation Paper Award at CASE2023.
In September 2025, Professor Song founded Shenzhen AncoraSpring Robotics Technology Co. Ltd., developing edge infrastructural technologies for physical intelligence towards AGI.
- Post-Doctoral Researcher, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
- Post-Doctoral Researcher, Engineering Product Development, Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore
- Ph.D. in Mechanism and Robotics, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
- B.Eng. in Mechanical Engineering, Tongji University, China
- Fastest Automated Task Board Solution Award, IROS2024 Competition on the euROBIN Manipulation Skill Versatility Challenge, 2024
- Excellence Practice Award, IROS2024 Workshop on Environment Dynamics Matters: Embodied Navigation to Movable Objects, 2024
- Higher Education Digitalization Pioneer Case Award, The International Centre for Higher Education Innovation under UNESCO (UNESCO-ICHEI), 2023
- Best Healthcare Automation Paper Award, IEEE International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE), 2023
- Best Conference Paper Finalist, IEEE/RAS/TMC International Conference on Advanced Robotics and Mechatronics (ICARM), 2023
- Honorable Award, Jingdong-TEDA 2018 Robotics Challenge, 2018
- Best Conference Paper Award Finalist, IEEE/RAS International Conference on Real-time Computing and Robotics (RCAR), 2016
- Reviewer's Favorite Paper Award, The International Conference on Engineering Design (ICED), 2013
- Proprioceptive learning with soft polyhedral Networks. In: The International Journal of Robotics Research, 2024.
- Proprioceptive state estimation for amphibious tactile sensing. In: IEEE Transactions on Robotics. (Special collection on tactile robotics)
- Autoencoding a soft touch to learn grasping from on-land to underwater. In: Advanced Intelligent Systems, 2024. (Front cover)
- Overconstrained locomotion. In: International Symposium of Robotics Research (ISRR), 2024.
- One fling to goal: environment-aware dynamics for goal-conditioned fabric flinging. In: Workshop on the Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics (WAFR), 2024.
- Reconfigurable design and modeling of an underwater superlimb for diving assistance. In: Advanced Intelligent Systems, 2023. (Back cover and editor's choice)
- Computational design towards energy efficient optimization in overconstrained robotic limbs. In: Journal of Computational Design and Engineering, 2023. (Editor's choice)
- Underwater intention recognition using head motion and throat vibration for supernumerary robotic assistance. In: IEEE International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE), 2023. (Best healthcare automation paper award)
- Soft magnetic skin for super-resolution tactile sensing with force self-decoupling. In: Science Robotics, 2021. (ESI Highly Cited Paper)
- Visual learning towards soft robot force control using a 3D metamaterial with differential stiffness. In: Conference on Robot Learning (CoRL), 2021.