Physical AI Lab @ UTK

At the Physical AI Lab, we develop robust, efficient, and generalizable Physical AI systems that perceive, plan, learn, and act in the physical world. Our research spans autonomous driving, V2X, robotics, computer vision, machine learning, large language models, edge AI, and interdisciplinary applications across transportation, agriculture, and other real-world domains.

Physical AI illustration

Research Themes

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Autonomous Driving

Perception, motion planning, V2X intelligence, world model, large language models

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Robotics

Perceive, plan, manipulate, and act reliably in dynamic environments, VLA

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Computer Vision

Detection, recognition, perception under challenging conditions

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Machine Learning

Transfer learning, domain generalization, unsupervised learning, trustworthy AI

Open Source

UMS CVPR 2026

Unsupervised Multi-agent and Single-agent Perception from Cooperative Views

V2X-DGW ICRA 2025

V2X-DGW: Domain Generalization for Multi-Agent Perception Under Adverse Weather Conditions

LightDiff CVPR2024

Light the Night: A Multi-Condition Diffusion Framework for Unpaired Low-Light Enhancement in Autonomous Driving

V2V4Real CVPR 2023

V2V4Real: A large-scale real-world dataset for Vehicle-to-Vehicle Cooperative Perception

Latest News

08/2026
Physical AI Lab @ UTK is established in Knoxville, TN.
08/2026
1 paper about V2X has been accepted by Transportation Research Part C. Congratulations to Baolu.
04/2026
Our team visited the University of Kentucky for the collaborative NSF project.
02/2026
1 paper about Autonomous Driving has been accepted by CVPR2026. Congratulations to Haochen and Baolu.
02/2026
Jiacheng has passed the PhD dissertation defense. Our 4th PhD! Congratulations to Dr. Jiacheng Guo! He is co-advised by Dr. Tianyun Zhang and Dr. Hongkai Yu.
02/2026
1 paper about Autonomous Driving in Dark Environment has been accepted by ICRA2026. Congratulations to Haochen.
01/2026
Baolu has passed the PhD dissertation defense. Our third PhD! Congratulations to Dr. Baolu Li!
09/2025
Dr. Yu has been selected in the World's Top 2% Scientists by Stanford/Elsevier. Congratulations!
09/2025
Dr. Yu received a new NSF grant. Thanks to NSF!