Max Robotics — Global Service Robot Directory + US Certification

About

Boyuan Liang is a rising roboticist whose work sits at the intersection of dexterous manipulation, tactile sensing, and locomotion. His research is unified by a drive to give robots the same adaptive, sensory-rich physical intelligence that humans take for granted. Liang’s most-cited paper (10 citations) tackles the challenging problem of in-hand following of deformable linear objects—like wires or cables—using dexterous fingers with tactile feedback, moving beyond rigid grasping to enable continuous, sliding manipulation. He has also made significant contributions to legged locomotion, introducing an adaptive energy regularization method that allows quadrupeds to autonomously transition between gaits for greater efficiency (7 citations). In perception, Liang developed a parameterized particle filtering framework for simultaneous pose and shape estimation using only tactile data, a critical capability for vision-denied environments (5 citations). His work on robust in-hand manipulation with extrinsic contacts and tactile-guided dynamic planar pushing further demonstrates his commitment to handling complex, real-world contact interactions. Notably, Liang has also ventured into bio-inspired design, creating a fish-mouth-inspired origami gripper for robust underwater grasping. With a growing body of work that consistently pushes the boundaries of what robots can feel and do, Liang is a researcher to watch in the field of robotic manipulation and embodied intelligence.