Mingjie ZHANG(张明杰)

Mingjie ZHANG(张明杰)

Robotics

About me

Hello! I’m Mingjie Zhang (张明杰), an MPhil student at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou), supervised by Prof. Boyu ZHOU (周博宇) and Prof. Jun MA (马骏). I also work at STAR Robotics Lab, Southern University of Science and Technology.

My research lies at the intersection of Robotics and Embodied AI. Current focus includes:

  • Vision-Language Navigation
  • Spatial Intelligence
  • Autonomous Robot Exploration/Reconstruction

I am also interested in Mobile Manipulation, Vision-Language-Action (VLA), and Humanoid Robotics.

If you are interested in research opportunities or collaborations, feel free to reach out at zagerzhang@gmail.com.

Hobbies: Badminton🏸, Swimming🏊‍.

Publications

* equal contribution † corresponding author
C²-Explorer DemonstrationC²-Explorer: Contiguity-Driven Task Allocation with Connectivity-Aware Task Representation for Decentralized Multi-UAV Exploration
Xinlu Yan*, Mingjie Zhang*, Yuhao Fang, Yanke Sun, Jun Ma, Youmin Gong, Boyu Zhou†, Jie Mei†
arXiv Preprint, 2026.
Paper Code Project Page Video
OnFly DemonstrationOnFly: Onboard Zero-Shot Aerial Vision-Language Navigation toward Safety and Efficiency
Guiyong Zheng, Yueting Ban, Mingjie Zhang, Juepeng Zheng, Boyu Zhou†
arXiv Preprint, 2026.
Paper Code Project Page Bilibili
ApexNav DemonstrationApexNav: An Adaptive Exploration Strategy for Zero-Shot Object Navigation with Target-centric Semantic Fusion
Mingjie Zhang, Yuheng Du, Chengkai Wu, Jinni Zhou, Zhenchao Qi, Jun Ma, Boyu Zhou†
IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RAL), 2025.
Paper IEEE Code Project Page Bilibili
SOAR DemonstrationSOAR: Simultaneous Exploration and Photographing with Heterogeneous UAVs for Fast Autonomous Reconstruction
Mingjie Zhang*, Chen Feng*, Zengzhi Li, Guiyong Zheng, Yiming Luo, Zhu Wang, Jinni Zhou, Shaojie Shen, and Boyu Zhou†
IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2024. (Oral)
Paper IEEE Code Project Page Bilibili Bilibili
FC-Planner DemonstrationFC-Planner: A Skeleton-guided Planning Framework for Fast Aerial Coverage of Complex 3D Scenes
Chen Feng, Haojia Li, Mingjie Zhang, Xinyi Chen, Boyu Zhou†, and Shaojie Shen
IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2024.
(Best Paper Award on UAV Finalists)
arxiv IEEE Code Project Page YouTube Talk
CARIC DemonstrationCooperative Aerial Robot Inspection Challenge: A Benchmark for Heterogeneous Multi-UAV Planning and Lessons Learned
Muqing Cao, Thien-Minh Nguyen, Shenghai Yuan, Andreas Anastasiou, Angelos Zacharia, Savvas Papaioannou, Panayiotis Kolios, Christos G Panayiotou, Marios M Polycarpou, Xinhang Xu, Mingjie Zhang, Fei Gao, Boyu Zhou, Ben M Chen, Lihua Xie
IEEE Robotics Automation & Magazine (RAM), 2025.
Paper IEEE Project Page Youtube

Service

  • Conference Reviewer ICRA, IROS
  • Journal Reviewer RA-L, T-RO

Selected Honors

  • IEEE ICRA Best Paper Award on UAV Finalists 2024 | IEEE Robotics & Automation Society
  • National Scholarship 2022 & 2023 | Ministry of Education of P.R. China
  • Outstanding Graduate 2024 | Northwestern Polytechnical University
  • Outstanding Student 2021, 2022 & 2023 | Northwestern Polytechnical University
  • Cooperative Aerial Robots Inspection Challenge 3rd Place 2023 | IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC)
  • Yat-sen Challenge of Intelligent Cooperative Robots 1st Prize 2023 | Sun Yat-sen University
  • National Robot Championship Competition First Prize 2021 & 2022 | CAAI
  • International Underwater Robot Competition First Prize 2021 | Organizing Committee of IURC