Hao Zhang   |   张昊

I am an Tenure-Track Associate Professor at the School of Mechanical Engineering, Hefei University of Technology. I received the Ph.D. degree in the Department of Automation at University of Science and Technology of China, advised by Prof. Zhen Kan.

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Research Overview

My current research interests include formal methods in robotics, reinforcement learning, and dexterous manipulation.




News

  • [2026/05] 🎉 LOTUS get accepted to IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems.
  • [2025/08] 🎉 DART get accepted to IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics.
  • [2024/06] 🎉 Two papers get accepted to IROS 2024.
  • [2024/05] 🎉 TALD is selected as Best Paper Award at ICAIS&ISAS 2024.
  • [2024/04] 🎉 TALD gets accepted to ICAIS&ISAS 2024.
  • [2023/06] 🎉 TRAPs gets accepted to IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics.
  • [2023/06] 🎉 T2TL gets accepted to IEEE RA-L.
  • [2022/05] 🎉 MQMT gets accepted to IEEE RA-L.
  • Publications

    Representative works are highlighted.




    Learning Universal Task Representations for Reinforcement Learning with Temporal Logic Guidance
    Hao Zhang, Zhangli Zhou, Zhen Kan
    Paper / Website
    IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems (Journal), 2026, Accepted

    We propose LOTUS, a temporal logic inspired universal task representation framework that can be seamlessly integrated into any RL algorithm to enhance agent performance across diverse task settings.



    A Novel Task-Driven Diffusion-Based Policy With Affordance Learning for Generalizable Manipulation of Articulated Objects
    Hao Zhang, Zhen Kan, Weiwei Shang, Yongduan Song
    Paper / Website
    IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics (Journal), 2025, Accepted

    We introduce DART, a novel framework that enhances a diffusion-based policy with affordance learning and linear temporal logic representations to improve the learning efficiency and generalizability of articulated dexterous manipulation.



    Exploiting Hybrid Policy in Reinforcement Learning for Interpretable Temporal Logic Manipulation
    Hao Zhang, Hao Wang, Xiucai Huang, Wenrui Chen, Zhen Kan
    Paper / Website / Code
    IROS (Conference), 2024, Accepted

    We develop a Temporal-Logicguided Hybrid policy framework (HyTL) which exploits three-level decision layers to facilitate robot learning.



    LEEPS: Learning End-to-End Legged Perceptive Parkour Skills on Challenging Terrains
    Tangyu Qian, Hao Zhang, Zhangli Zhou, Hao Wang, Mingyu Cai, Zhen Kan
    Paper / Website / Code
    IROS (Conference), 2024, Accepted

    We develop an End-to-End Legged Perceptive Parkour Skill Learning (LEEPS) framework to train quadruped robots to master parkour skills in complex environments.



    Temporal Logic Guided Affordance Learning for Generalizable Dexterous Manipulation
    Hao Zhang, Hao Wang, Tangyu Qian, Zhen Kan
    Paper / Website
    ICAIS&ISAS (Conference), 2024, Accepted

    We develop a temporal logic guided affordance learning framework for generalizable dexterous manipulations (TALD), which exploits affordance learning and task semantics to further improve generalization performance.



    Task-Driven Reinforcement Learning with Action Primitives for Long-Horizon Manipulation Skills
    Hao Wang, Hao Zhang, Lin Li Zhen Kan Yongduan Song
    Paper
    IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics (Journal), 2023, Accepted

    We develop Task-driven Reinforcement learning with Action Primitives (TRAPs), a new manipulation skill learning framework that augments standard reinforcement learning algorithms with formal methods and parameterized action space.



    Exploiting Transformer in Sparse Reward Reinforcement Learning for Interpretable Temporal Logic Motion Planning
    Hao Zhang, Hao Wang, Zhen Kan
    Paper / Code
    IEEE RA-L (Journal), 2023, Accepted

    We develop a Double-Transformer-guided Temporal Logic framework (T2TL) that exploits the structural feature of Transformer twice.



    Temporal Logic Guided Meta Q-Learning of Multiple Tasks
    Hao Zhang, Zhen Kan
    Paper
    IEEE RA-L (Journal), 2022, Accepted

    We develop a meta Q-learning of multi-task (MQMT) framework where the robot effectively learns a meta model from a diverse set of training tasks and then generalizes the learned model to a new set of tasks.


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