Yuan Zheng

Dr. Yuan Zheng


Research Focus & Metrics

Academic Career Length

4Years (2023-Present)

(Calculated once Scilit publication data is synced: current year − year of first publication + 1)

Representative Publications

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31 March 2025 in Drones
Verified
Journal Article
Open access
PDF file
YZYuan Zheng
Yuan Zheng
YLYichao Li
Yichao Li
JCjie cheng
jie cheng
CLChenglong Li
Chenglong Li
SHShichen Hu
Shichen Hu
The rapid development of the drone industry has facilitated the emergence of concepts such as urban air mobility (UAM), driving a wave of air logistics in urban very low-level (VLL) airspace. However, existing trajectory planning algorithms do not adequately consider the ground risks and secondary conflicts arising from high-density operations in urban VLL airspace. To address these challenges, this paper proposes a two-stage hierarchical 4D trajectory planning method to minimize multiple risks. Specifically, the method consists of a risk-aware global planning module (RAGPM) for preflight trajectory planning and a non-secondary conflict local planning module (NCLPM) for in-flight conflict avoidance. Consequently, low-risk trajectory without secondary conflict can be found in complex environments with high-density operations, as illustrated by extensive experiments.

12 March 2025 in Aerospace
Verified
Journal Article
Open access
PDF file
ZZZhiYuan Zhang
ZhiYuan Zhang
YZYuan Zheng
Yuan Zheng
CLChenglong Li
Chenglong Li
BJBo Jiang
Bo Jiang
YLYichao Li
Yichao Li
The corridor network serves as an effective solution for the airspace structure safety design of UAM. However, current studies rarely account for the ground risk posed by the corridor operation and typically consider a single design objective with limited variables. In this paper, we address these gaps by considering three key factors: demand, safety, and implementation costs. The corridor network design is formulated as a multi-objective optimization problem. In practice, firstly, we define the travel time-saving rate, average population density, and total length of corridors as optimization objectives. Then, we propose a straightforward and efficient corridor network encoding scheme that supports a variable number of corridors, significantly enhancing the diversity and flexibility of corridor network designs. Finally, based on this encoding scheme, we solve the corridor network problem using the unified non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm III (U-NSGA-III). Based on a detailed analysis of the obtained Pareto front, a relatively optimal design scheme across three optimization objectives is determined. The case study conducted in Chengdu illustrates that the corridor network obtained by our method not only achieves a 37.8% reduction in ground risk and a 69.9% decrease in implementation costs, but also saves a comparable 4.7% in time relative to traditional methods.

22 May 2023 in Drones
Verified
Journal Article
Open access
PDF file
CLChenglong Li
Chenglong Li
WGWenyong Gu
Wenyong Gu
YZYuan Zheng
Yuan Zheng
LHLongyang Huang
Longyang Huang
XZXuejun Zhang
Xuejun Zhang
Air logistics transportation has become one of the most promising markets for the civil drone industry. However, the large flow, high density, and complex environmental characteristics of urban scenes make tactical conflict resolution very challenging. Existing conflict resolution methods are limited by insufficient collision avoidance success rates when considering non-cooperative targets and fail to take the temporal constraints of the pre-defined 4D trajectory into consideration. In this paper, a novel reinforcement learning-based tactical conflict resolution method for air logistics transportation is designed by reconstructing the state space following the risk sectors concept and through the use of a novel Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA)-based temporal reward setting. Our contributions allow a drone to integrate the temporal constraints of the 4D trajectory pre-defined in the strategic phase. As a consequence, the drone can successfully avoid non-cooperative targets while greatly reducing the occurrence of secondary conflicts, as demonstrated by the numerical simulation results.

15 July 2023 in arXiv
Verified
Preprint
Open access
PDF file
LPLei Pan
Lei Pan
WLWuyang Luan
Wuyang Luan
YZYuan Zheng
Yuan Zheng
QFQiang Fu
Qiang Fu
JLJunhui Li
Junhui Li
Most existing 3D instance segmentation methods are derived from 3D semantic segmentation models. However, these indirect approaches suffer from certain limitations. They fail to fully leverage global and local semantic information for accurate prediction, which hampers the overall performance of the 3D instance segmentation framework. To address these issues, this paper presents PSGformer, a novel 3D instance segmentation network. PSGformer incorporates two key advancements to enhance the performance of 3D instance segmentation. Firstly, we propose a Multi-Level Semantic Aggregation Module, which effectively captures scene features by employing foreground point filtering and multi-radius aggregation. This module enables the acquisition of more detailed semantic information from global and local perspectives. Secondly, PSGformer introduces a Parallel Feature Fusion Transformer Module that independently processes super-point features and aggregated features using transformers. The model achieves a more comprehensive feature representation by the features which connect global and local features. We conducted extensive experiments on the ScanNetv2 dataset. Notably, PSGformer exceeds compared state-of-the-art methods by 2.2% on ScanNetv2 hidden test set in terms of mAP. Our code and models will be publicly released.

23 January 2026 in Aerospace
Verified
Journal Article
Open access
PDF file
XLXuchuan Liu
Xuchuan Liu
YZYuan Zheng
Yuan Zheng
CLChenglong Li
Chenglong Li
BJBo Jiang
Bo Jiang
WGWenyong Gu
Wenyong Gu
Collision avoidance between unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and non-cooperative targets (e.g., off-nominal operations or birds) presents significant challenges in urban air mobility (UAM). This difficulty arises due to the highly dynamic and unpredictable flight intentions of these targets. Traditional collision-avoidance methods primarily focus on cooperative targets or non-cooperative ones with fixed behavior, rendering them ineffective when dealing with highly unpredictable flight patterns. To address this, we introduce a deep reinforcement learning-based collision-avoidance approach leveraging global and local intent prediction. Specifically, we propose a Global and Local Perception Prediction Module (GLPPM) that combines a state-space-based global intent association mechanism with a local feature extraction module, enabling accurate prediction of short- and long-term flight intents. Additionally, we propose a Fusion Sector Flight Control Module (FSFCM) that is trained with a Dueling Double Deep Q-Network (D3QN). The module integrates both predicted future and current intents into the state space and employs a specifically designed reward function, thereby ensuring safe UAV operations. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method significantly improves mission success rates in high-density environments, with up to 80 non-cooperative targets per square kilometer. In 1000 flight tests, the mission success rate is 15.2 percentage points higher than that of the baseline D3QN. Furthermore, the approach retains an 88.1% success rate even under extreme target densities of 120 targets per square kilometer. Finally, interpretability analysis via Deep SHAP further verifies the decision-making rationality of the algorithm.

28 July 2026 in Aerospace
Verified
Journal Article
Open access
PDF file
SHShichen Hu
Shichen Hu
YZYuan Zheng
Yuan Zheng
JDJinqi Dai
Jinqi Dai
HJHui Jiang
Hui Jiang
YFYiwu Feng
Yiwu Feng
Urban instant-delivery platforms increasingly require efficient, punctual, and low-carbon delivery services. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can reduce dependence on congested ground traffic in meal delivery and further improve overall delivery efficiency through coordinated operations with ground riders at rendezvous points. However, existing studies mainly focus on ground-based routing or simplify UAV-assisted delivery as a single-objective problem, limiting their ability to balance cost, completion time, carbon emissions, and service quality. To address this limitation, this paper investigates a collaborative UAV–rider meal delivery routing problem and formulates a multi-objective optimization model integrating restaurant pickup, UAV transfer, rider last-mile delivery, and soft customer time windows. An Enhanced NSGA-II algorithm is then developed, where hybrid initialization improves solution quality and diversity, adaptive operators balance exploration and exploitation, local search refines route structures, structural repair maintains feasibility, and diversity preservation supports a well-distributed Pareto front. Comparative experiments against NSGA-II, MOPSO, NSGA-III, MOEA/D, MODE, and IMODE, together with scalability, ablation, sensitivity, and case analyses, show that E-NSGA-II provides stronger Pareto-front approximation. The results support its use as a decision-support method for service-aware and low-carbon UAV–rider meal delivery, while also revealing additional computational cost.