Ji Zhang
Systems Scientist, Robotics Institute
Ji Zhang’s research interests are in robotic navigation, spanning localization, mapping, planning, and exploration. His early work on Lidar Odometry and Mapping (LOAM) and the succeeding work leveraging range, vision, and inertial sensing opened up real-time 3D Lidar SLAM. His work ranked number one on the odometry leaderboard of KITTI Vision Benchmark between 2014 and 2021. He founded Kaarta, Inc, a CMU spin-off commercializing 3D mapping & modeling technologies, and stayed with the company for four years as chief scientist. In late 2019, he rejoined CMU as a faculty member and started leading the development of a series of autonomous navigation algorithms. The complete navigation system brought the CMU-OSU Team a Most Sectors Explored Award on DARPA Subterranean Challenge, conducting the most complete exploration among all teams.