Lihan Lian

Lihan Lian

Robotics enthusiast. Passionate about optimal control and deep learning.

Hi, I’m Lihan Lian (廉立涵).

I am a robotics enthusiast with a deep admiration for the pioneers of modern control theory, including Lev Pontryagin, Richard Bellman, and Rudolf Kalman.

I am passionate about robotics, particularly in areas such as robotic manipulation, legged locomotion, and autonomous driving. My research interests include, but are not limited to, optimal control, reinforcement learning, visual servoing and imitation learning.

I am looking for Ph.D. opportunities starting in Fall 2026.

To take risks and make mistakes.

About me

I earned my Master’s degree in Robotics at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where I was advised by Prof. Uduak Inyang-Udoh in the Autonomous & Intelligent Systems Lab (AI-Sys Lab). My work primarily focuses on applying data-driven methods to solve optimal control problems, with a particular focus on indirect method.

Prior to that, I obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering with a minor in Computer Science from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. During my undergraduate studies, I was advised by Prof. Jingwen Hu at the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI), where I worked on parametric human modeling, with a particular emphasis on thoracic spine modeling.

News

  • Dec 10, 2025
    I am happy to present our accepted paper at Conference on Decision and Control (CDC) 2025 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
  • July 16, 2025
    Paper "Neural Co-state Regulator: A Data-Driven Paradigm for Real-time Optimal Control with Input Constraints" has been accepted for Conference on Decision and Control (CDC) 2025! Code is also now availabe.
  • Jan 17, 2025
    Paper "Co-state Neural Network for Real-time Nonlinear Optimal Control with Input Constraints" has been accepted!
  • Oct 02, 2024
    Our paper "Co-state Neural Network for Real-time Nonlinear Optimal Control with Input Constraints" has been submitted to American Control Conference (ACC) 2025.
  • May 23, 2023
    I am honored to have given an oral presentation at the 18th Injury Biomechanics Symposium on our work concerning parametric thoracic spine modeling.

Education