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About

Kaige Shi is a versatile robotics researcher whose work spans two distinct but complementary domains: advanced suction and adhesion mechanisms for climbing robots, and safety-critical human-robot interaction. His early contributions focused on innovative vacuum technology, most notably the development of a zero pressure difference vacuum suction unit (2020, 29 citations) that elegantly addresses the longstanding challenge of vacuum leakage without physically blocking airflow — a significant departure from conventional approaches. His complementary work on rotational-flow suction units (2019, 17 citations) provided both theoretical foundations and practical design methods for wall-climbing robots capable of navigating rough surfaces and obstacles. More recently, Shi has emerged as a notable voice in safe human-robot collaboration, developing sophisticated control frameworks that blend control barrier functions with quadratic programming. His research tackles the nuanced challenge of enabling robots to operate fluidly across both contactless and physical interaction modes while maintaining rigorous safety guarantees — an increasingly critical problem as robots enter shared workspaces. His 2023 and 2024 publications, accumulating nearly 40 citations collectively in just one to two years, reflect growing community recognition of this work. Across these research threads, Shi demonstrates a consistent drive to bridge theoretical rigor with real-world robotic deployment.