Yi Du is currently a PhD student at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE), University at Buffalo (UB). His research interests cover LiDAR-RGB fusion, 3D perception and Foundation Model Enhanced Robot Learning.

Experience

Ph.D. in Computer Science
- University at Buffalo (UB), USA
- Jan. 2023 - Present
Master of Science in Engineering
- University of Pennsylvania, USA
- Aug. 2020 - May 2022
Bachelor of Engineering
- Sichuan University, Chengdu, China
- Sep. 2016 - June 2020

Awards

SAIR STAR Award 2025

Emails

Work Email: yid@sairlab.org
School Email: yidu@buffalo.edu

Publications

Fast Task Planning with Neuro-Symbolic Relaxation.
Qiwei Du, Bowen Li, Yi Du, Shaoshu Su, Taimeng Fu, Zitong Zhan, Zhipeng Zhao, Chen Wang.
IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L), vol. 11, no. 3, pp. 3684–3691, 2026.

An elegant real-world demonstration of interactive navigation
```
@article{du2026fast,
  title = {Fast Task Planning with Neuro-Symbolic Relaxation},
  author = {Du, Qiwei and Li, Bowen and Du, Yi and Su, Shaoshu and Fu, Taimeng and Zhan, Zitong and Zhao, Zhipeng and Wang, Chen},
  journal = {IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L)},
  year = {2026},
  volume = {11},
  number = {3},
  pages = {3684-3691},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.15975},
  website = {https://sairlab.org/flax/},
  code = {https://github.com/sair-lab/flax},
  video = {https://youtu.be/_4DYcqwycnQ},
  cover = {/img/posts/2025-07-21-flax/Flax.mp4},
  addendum = {An elegant real-world demonstration of interactive navigation}
}
```
```
Du, Qiwei and Li, Bowen and Du, Yi and Su, Shaoshu and Fu, Taimeng and Zhan, Zitong and Zhao, Zhipeng and Wang, Chen, "Fast Task Planning with Neuro-Symbolic Relaxation," IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L), 2026.
```
GSMem: 3D Gaussian Splatting as Persistent Spatial Memory for Zero-Shot Embodied Exploration and Reasoning.
Yiren Lu, Yi Du, Disheng Liu, Yunlai Zhou, Chen Wang, Yu Yin.
arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.19137, 2026.
```
@article{lu2026gsmem,
  title = {{GSMem}: 3D Gaussian Splatting as Persistent Spatial Memory for Zero-Shot Embodied Exploration and Reasoning},
  author = {Lu, Yiren and Du, Yi and Liu, Disheng and Zhou, Yunlai and Wang, Chen and Yin, Yu},
  journal = {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.19137},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.19137},
  website = {https://yiren-lu.com/project_pages/gsmem/},
  cover = {/img/pubs/GSMem.mp4}
}
```
```
Lu, Yiren and Du, Yi and Liu, Disheng and Zhou, Yunlai and Wang, Chen and Yin, Yu, "GSMem: 3D Gaussian Splatting as Persistent Spatial Memory for Zero-Shot Embodied Exploration and Reasoning," arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.19137, 2026.
```
VL-Nav: A Neuro-Symbolic Approach for Reasoning-based Vision-Language Navigation.
Yi Du, Taimeng Fu, Zhipeng Zhao, Shaoshu Su, Zitong Zhan, Qiwei Du, Zhuoqun Chen, Bowen Li, Chen Wang.
arXiv preprint arXiv:2502.00931, 2026.

Deployment-ready neuro-symbolic vision-language navigation
```
@article{du2026vlnav,
  title = {{VL-Nav}: A Neuro-Symbolic Approach for Reasoning-based Vision-Language Navigation},
  author = {Du, Yi and Fu, Taimeng and Zhao, Zhipeng and Su, Shaoshu and Zhan, Zitong and Du, Qiwei and Chen, Zhuoqun and Li, Bowen and Wang, Chen},
  year = {2026},
  journal = {arXiv preprint arXiv:2502.00931},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.00931},
  website = {https://sairlab.org/vlnav/},
  cover = {/img/posts/2025-02-01-vlnav/vlnav_cover.mp4},
  addendum = {Deployment-ready neuro-symbolic vision-language navigation}
}
```
```
Du, Yi and Fu, Taimeng and Zhao, Zhipeng and Su, Shaoshu and Zhan, Zitong and Du, Qiwei and Chen, Zhuoqun and Li, Bowen and Wang, Chen, "VL-Nav: A Neuro-Symbolic Approach for Reasoning-based Vision-Language Navigation," arXiv preprint arXiv:2502.00931, 2026.
```
Vision to Geometry: 3D Spatial Memory for Sequential Embodied MLLM Reasoning and Exploration.
Zhongyi Cai, Yi Du, Chen Wang, Yu Kong.
arXiv preprint arXiv:2512.02458, 2026.
```
@article{cai2026vision,
  title = {Vision to Geometry: 3D Spatial Memory for Sequential Embodied MLLM Reasoning and Exploration},
  author = {Cai, Zhongyi and Du, Yi and Wang, Chen and Kong, Yu},
  journal = {arXiv preprint arXiv:2512.02458},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.02458},
  year = {2026},
  cover = {/img/pubs/VisionToGeometry.jpeg}
}
```
```
Cai, Zhongyi and Du, Yi and Wang, Chen and Kong, Yu, "Vision to Geometry: 3D Spatial Memory for Sequential Embodied MLLM Reasoning and Exploration," arXiv preprint arXiv:2512.02458, 2026.
```
Imperative Learning: A Self-supervised Neuro-Symbolic Learning Framework for Robot Autonomy.
Chen Wang, Kaiyi Ji, Junyi Geng, Zhongqiang Ren, Taimeng Fu, Fan Yang, Yifan Guo, Haonan He, Xiangyu Chen, Zitong Zhan, Qiwei Du, Shaoshu Su, Bowen Li, Yuheng Qiu, Yi Du, Qihang Li, Yifan Yang, Xiao Lin, Zhipeng Zhao.
International Journal of Robotics Research (IJRR), 2025.

Unifying robot autonomy via neuro-symbolic learning
```
@article{wang2025imperative,
  title = {Imperative Learning: A Self-supervised Neuro-Symbolic Learning Framework for Robot Autonomy},
  author = {Wang, Chen and Ji, Kaiyi and Geng, Junyi and Ren, Zhongqiang and Fu, Taimeng and Yang, Fan and Guo, Yifan and He, Haonan and Chen, Xiangyu and Zhan, Zitong and Du, Qiwei and Su, Shaoshu and Li, Bowen and Qiu, Yuheng and Du, Yi and Li, Qihang and Yang, Yifan and Lin, Xiao and Zhao, Zhipeng},
  journal = {International Journal of Robotics Research (IJRR)},
  year = {2025},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.16087},
  code = {https://github.com/sair-lab/iSeries},
  website = {https://sairlab.org/iseries},
  cover = {/img/posts/2024-07-02-iSeries/il-cover.jpg},
  addendum = {Unifying robot autonomy via neuro-symbolic learning}
}
```
```
Wang, Chen and Ji, Kaiyi and Geng, Junyi and Ren, Zhongqiang and Fu, Taimeng and Yang, Fan and Guo, Yifan and He, Haonan and Chen, Xiangyu and Zhan, Zitong and Du, Qiwei and Su, Shaoshu and Li, Bowen and Qiu, Yuheng and Du, Yi and Li, Qihang and Yang, Yifan and Lin, Xiao and Zhao, Zhipeng, "Imperative Learning: A Self-supervised Neuro-Symbolic Learning Framework for Robot Autonomy," International Journal of Robotics Research (IJRR), 2025.
```
SuperPC: A Single Diffusion Model for Point Cloud Completion, Upsampling, Denoising, and Colorization.
Yi Du, Zhipeng Zhao, Shaoshu Su, Sharath Golluri, Haoze Zheng, Runmao Yao, Chen Wang.
IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), pp. 16953–16964, 2025.

Unifying point cloud processing via a single diffusion model
```
@inproceedings{du2025superpc,
  title = {{SuperPC}: A Single Diffusion Model for Point Cloud Completion, Upsampling, Denoising, and Colorization},
  author = {Du, Yi and Zhao, Zhipeng and Su, Shaoshu and Golluri, Sharath and Zheng, Haoze and Yao, Runmao and Wang, Chen},
  booktitle = {IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR)},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.14558},
  year = {2025},
  pages = {16953--16964},
  code = {https://github.com/sair-lab/superpc},
  website = {https://sairlab.org/superpc/},
  cover = {/img/posts/2025-02-28-superpc/superpc_cover.mp4},
  addendum = {Unifying point cloud processing via a single diffusion model}
}
```
```
Du, Yi and Zhao, Zhipeng and Su, Shaoshu and Golluri, Sharath and Zheng, Haoze and Yao, Runmao and Wang, Chen, "SuperPC: A Single Diffusion Model for Point Cloud Completion, Upsampling, Denoising, and Colorization," IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), 2025.
```
AirRoom: Objects Matter in Room Reidentification.
Runmao Yao, Yi Du, Zhuoqun Chen, Haoze Zheng, Chen Wang.
IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), pp. 1385–1394, 2025.
```
@inproceedings{yao2025airroom,
  title = {{AirRoom}: Objects Matter in Room Reidentification},
  author = {Yao, Runmao and Du, Yi and Chen, Zhuoqun and Zheng, Haoze and Wang, Chen},
  booktitle = {IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR)},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.01130},
  website = {https://sairlab.org/airroom/},
  year = {2025},
  pages = {1385--1394},
  code = {https://github.com/21yrm/AirRoom},
  cover = {/img/posts/2025-03-02-airroom/airroom.jpg}
}
```
```
Yao, Runmao and Du, Yi and Chen, Zhuoqun and Zheng, Haoze and Wang, Chen, "AirRoom: Objects Matter in Room Reidentification," IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), 2025.
```
Vision-Language Memory for Spatial Reasoning.
Zuntao Liu, Yi Du, Taimeng Fu, Shaoshu Su, Cherie Ho, Chen Wang.
arXiv preprint arXiv:2511.20644, 2025.
```
@article{liu2025vlm2,
  title = {Vision-Language Memory for Spatial Reasoning},
  author = {Liu, Zuntao and Du, Yi and Fu, Taimeng and Su, Shaoshu and Ho, Cherie and Wang, Chen},
  year = {2025},
  journal = {arXiv preprint arXiv:2511.20644},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.20644},
  website = {https://sairlab.org/vlm2/},
  cover = {/img/posts/2025-11-25-vlm2/vlm2.png}
}
```
```
Liu, Zuntao and Du, Yi and Fu, Taimeng and Su, Shaoshu and Ho, Cherie and Wang, Chen, "Vision-Language Memory for Spatial Reasoning," arXiv preprint arXiv:2511.20644, 2025.
```
PhysORD: A Neuro-Symbolic Approach for Physics-infused Motion Prediction in Off-road Driving.
Zhipeng Zhao, Bowen Li, Yi Du, Taimeng Fu, Chen Wang.
IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), pp. 11670–11677, 2024.

Neuro-symbolic learning pushes SOTA by 46% higher accuracy using 3% model size
```
@inproceedings{zhao2024physord,
  title = {{PhysORD}: A Neuro-Symbolic Approach for Physics-infused Motion Prediction in Off-road Driving},
  author = {Zhao, Zhipeng and Li, Bowen and Du, Yi and Fu, Taimeng and Wang, Chen},
  booktitle = {IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)},
  year = {2024},
  pages = {11670--11677},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.01596},
  code = {https://github.com/sair-lab/PhysORD},
  video = {https://youtu.be/kYa9dAyUkYI},
  website = {https://sairlab.org/physord},
  cover = {/img/posts/2024-08-17-physord/physord_exp.gif},
  addendum = {Neuro-symbolic learning pushes SOTA by 46\% higher accuracy using 3\% model size}
}
```
```
Zhao, Zhipeng and Li, Bowen and Du, Yi and Fu, Taimeng and Wang, Chen, "PhysORD: A Neuro-Symbolic Approach for Physics-infused Motion Prediction in Off-road Driving," IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2024.
```
SubT-MRS Dataset: Pushing SLAM Towards All-weather Environments.
Shibo Zhao, Yuanjun Gao, Tianhao Wu, Damanpreet Singh, Rushan Jiang, Haoxiang Sun, Mansi Sarawata, Warren C Whittaker, Ian Higgins, Shaoshu Su, Yi Du, Can Xu, John Keller, Jay Karhade, Lucas Nogueira, Sourojit Saha, Yuheng Qiu, Ji Zhang, Wenshan Wang, Chen Wang, Sebastian Scherer.
IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), pp. 22647–22657, 2024.
```
@inproceedings{zhao2024subt,
  title = {{SubT-MRS} Dataset: Pushing SLAM Towards All-weather Environments},
  author = {Zhao, Shibo and Gao, Yuanjun and Wu, Tianhao and Singh, Damanpreet and Jiang, Rushan and Sun, Haoxiang and Sarawata, Mansi and Whittaker, Warren C and Higgins, Ian and Su, Shaoshu and Du, Yi and Xu, Can and Keller, John and Karhade, Jay and Nogueira, Lucas and Saha, Sourojit and Qiu, Yuheng and Zhang, Ji and Wang, Wenshan and Wang, Chen and Scherer, Sebastian},
  booktitle = {IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR)},
  year = {2024},
  pages = {22647--22657},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.07607},
  video = {https://youtu.be/mkN72Lv8S7A},
  website = {https://sairlab.org/datasets/subtmrs},
  code = {https://superodometry.com/datasets},
  cover = {/img/posts/2023-11-18-subtmrs/subtmrs-high.gif}
}
```
```
Zhao, Shibo and Gao, Yuanjun and Wu, Tianhao and Singh, Damanpreet and Jiang, Rushan and Sun, Haoxiang and Sarawata, Mansi and Whittaker, Warren C and Higgins, Ian and Su, Shaoshu and Du, Yi and Xu, Can and Keller, John and Karhade, Jay and Nogueira, Lucas and Saha, Sourojit and Qiu, Yuheng and Zhang, Ji and Wang, Wenshan and Wang, Chen and Scherer, Sebastian, "SubT-MRS Dataset: Pushing SLAM Towards All-weather Environments," IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), 2024.
```
PyPose v0.6: The Imperative Programming Interface for Robotics.
Zitong Zhan, Xiangfu Li, Qihang Li, Haonan He, Abhinav Pandey, Haitao Xiao, Yangmengfei Xu, Xiangyu Chen, Kuan Xu, Kun Cao, Zhipeng Zhao, Zihan Wang, Huan Xu, Zihang Fang, Yutian Chen, Wentao Wang, Xu Fang, Yi Du, Tianhao Wu, Xiao Lin, Yuheng Qiu, Fan Yang, Jingnan Shi, Shaoshu Su, Yiren Lu, Taimeng Fu, Karthik Dantu, Jiajun Wu, Lihua Xie, Marco Hutter, Luca Carlone, Sebastian Scherer, Daning Huang, Yaoyu Hu, Junyi Geng, Chen Wang.
IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) Workshop, 2023.
```
@inproceedings{zhan2023pypose,
  title = {{PyPose} v0.6: The Imperative Programming Interface for Robotics},
  author = {Zhan, Zitong and Li, Xiangfu and Li, Qihang and He, Haonan and Pandey, Abhinav and Xiao, Haitao and Xu, Yangmengfei and Chen, Xiangyu and Xu, Kuan and Cao, Kun and Zhao, Zhipeng and Wang, Zihan and Xu, Huan and Fang, Zihang and Chen, Yutian and Wang, Wentao and Fang, Xu and Du, Yi and Wu, Tianhao and Lin, Xiao and Qiu, Yuheng and Yang, Fan and Shi, Jingnan and Su, Shaoshu and Lu, Yiren and Fu, Taimeng and Dantu, Karthik and Wu, Jiajun and Xie, Lihua and Hutter, Marco and Carlone, Luca and Scherer, Sebastian and Huang, Daning and Hu, Yaoyu and Geng, Junyi and Wang, Chen},
  year = {2023},
  booktitle = {IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) Workshop},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.13035},
  code = {https://github.com/pypose/pypose},
  video = {https://youtu.be/XDtUDIWuGng},
  website = {https://sairlab.org/pypose/},
  cover = {/img/pubs/pypose-v0.6.jpg}
}
```
```
Zhan, Zitong and Li, Xiangfu and Li, Qihang and He, Haonan and Pandey, Abhinav and Xiao, Haitao and Xu, Yangmengfei and Chen, Xiangyu and Xu, Kuan and Cao, Kun and Zhao, Zhipeng and Wang, Zihan and Xu, Huan and Fang, Zihang and Chen, Yutian and Wang, Wentao and Fang, Xu and Du, Yi and Wu, Tianhao and Lin, Xiao and Qiu, Yuheng and Yang, Fan and Shi, Jingnan and Su, Shaoshu and Lu, Yiren and Fu, Taimeng and Dantu, Karthik and Wu, Jiajun and Xie, Lihua and Hutter, Marco and Carlone, Luca and Scherer, Sebastian and Huang, Daning and Hu, Yaoyu and Geng, Junyi and Wang, Chen, "PyPose v0.6: The Imperative Programming Interface for Robotics," IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) Workshop, 2023.
```
PyPose: A Library for Robot Learning with Physics-based Optimization.
Chen Wang, Dasong Gao, Kuan Xu, Junyi Geng, Yaoyu Hu, Yuheng Qiu, Bowen Li, Fan Yang, Brady Moon, Abhinav Pandey, Aryan, Jiahe Xu, Tianhao Wu, Haonan He, Daning Huang, Zhongqiang Ren, Shibo Zhao, Taimeng Fu, Pranay Reddy, Xiao Lin, Wenshan Wang, Jingnan Shi, Rajat Talak, Kun Cao, Yi Du, Han Wang, Huai Yu, Shanzhao Wang, Siyu Chen, Ananth Kashyap, Rohan Bandaru, Karthik Dantu, Jiajun Wu, Lihua Xie, Luca Carlone, Marco Hutter, Sebastian Scherer.
IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), pp. 22024–22034, 2023.

Python library accumulated over 160,000 downloads in 2025
```
@inproceedings{wang2023pypose,
  title = {{PyPose}: A Library for Robot Learning with Physics-based Optimization},
  author = {Wang, Chen and Gao, Dasong and Xu, Kuan and Geng, Junyi and Hu, Yaoyu and Qiu, Yuheng and Li, Bowen and Yang, Fan and Moon, Brady and Pandey, Abhinav and Aryan and Xu, Jiahe and Wu, Tianhao and He, Haonan and Huang, Daning and Ren, Zhongqiang and Zhao, Shibo and Fu, Taimeng and Reddy, Pranay and Lin, Xiao and Wang, Wenshan and Shi, Jingnan and Talak, Rajat and Cao, Kun and Du, Yi and Wang, Han and Yu, Huai and Wang, Shanzhao and Chen, Siyu and Kashyap, Ananth and Bandaru, Rohan and Dantu, Karthik and Wu, Jiajun and Xie, Lihua and Carlone, Luca and Hutter, Marco and Scherer, Sebastian},
  booktitle = {IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR)},
  year = {2023},
  pages = {22024--22034},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2209.15428},
  code = {https://github.com/pypose/pypose},
  video = {https://youtu.be/XDtUDIWuGng},
  website = {https://sairlab.org/pypose/},
  cover = {/img/posts/pypose/robots.jpg},
  addendum = {Python library accumulated over 160,000 downloads in 2025}
}
```
```
Wang, Chen and Gao, Dasong and Xu, Kuan and Geng, Junyi and Hu, Yaoyu and Qiu, Yuheng and Li, Bowen and Yang, Fan and Moon, Brady and Pandey, Abhinav and Aryan and Xu, Jiahe and Wu, Tianhao and He, Haonan and Huang, Daning and Ren, Zhongqiang and Zhao, Shibo and Fu, Taimeng and Reddy, Pranay and Lin, Xiao and Wang, Wenshan and Shi, Jingnan and Talak, Rajat and Cao, Kun and Du, Yi and Wang, Han and Yu, Huai and Wang, Shanzhao and Chen, Siyu and Kashyap, Ananth and Bandaru, Rohan and Dantu, Karthik and Wu, Jiajun and Xie, Lihua and Carlone, Luca and Hutter, Marco and Scherer, Sebastian, "PyPose: A Library for Robot Learning with Physics-based Optimization," IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), 2023.
```