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He 'David' Zhang

Assistant Professor of Computer Science
All FacultyComputer Science

Contact Information
Email: ZhangHD@gcc.edu

He 'David' Zhang

Education

  • Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, 2018
  • B.S. in Computer Science and Theory, Chinese University of Mining and Technology at Beijing, 2009

What are the main focuses of your research?

My pre-doctoral, doctoral, and post-doctoral training has focused on using vision-based algorithms for indoor localization, 2D/3D map construction, human body segmentation, path planning, obstacle avoidance, etc. Furthermore, my research experience is heavily involved with engineering contributions to various applications—integrating these algorithms into real-time systems for an indoor mobile service robot, a wearable object manipulation aid (W-ROMA), a quadrupedal human-assistive robotic platform (Q-HARP), and a robotic navigational aid (RNA). I received my doctoral training at UA Little Rock, where I extensively studied 3D-camera based techniques for blind navigation. The major contribution of my Ph.D. work is to design and fabricate two RNA prototypes, called Smart Cane and CoRobotic Cane, created to aid blind travelers with wayfinding and obstacle avoidance. This work has been reported by the UALRTV channel and presented at the Congressional Robotics Caucus in 2016 and the AIMBE Congressional Medical Technology Exhibition in 2017, respectively. I received an excellent graduation award for my academic achievements. After that, I conducted my post-doctoral research in the Computer Science department at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), where my research focused on vision-based methods for portable and wearable assistive systems for blind users. More details can be found here.

What specific courses or specialties do you teach?

  • Operating Systems
  • Database
  • Data Comm
  • Computer Architecture
  • iOS Programing
  • Android Programing
  • Advanced Cybersecurity

Selected Publications

  • H. Zhang, L. Jin, and C. Ye, "An RGB-D camera based visual positioning system for assistive navigation by a robotic navigation aid," IEEE/CAA Journal of Automatica Sinica, vol. 8, pp. 1389-1400, 2021.
  • L. Jin, H. Zhang, and C. Ye, "Camera intrinsic parameters estimation by visual–inertial odometry for a mobile phone with application to assisted navigation," IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics, vol. 25, pp. 1803-1811, 2020.
  • T. Shen, M. R. Afsar, H. Zhang, C. Ye, and X. Shen "A 3D computer vision-guided robotic companion for non-contact human assistance and rehabilitation," Journal of Intelligent & Robotic Systems, vol 100, pp. 911-923, 2020.
  • H. Zhang and C. Ye, "Indoor Wayfinding System based on Geometric Features Aided Graph SLAM for the Visually Impaired," IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering, vol. 25, no. 9, pp. 1592-1604, 2017.
  • H. Zhang and C. Ye, "RGB-D Camera Based Walking Pattern Recognition by Support Vector Machines for a Smart Rollator," International Journal of Intelligent Robotics and Applications, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 32-42, 2017.
  • H. Zhang and C, Ye, "Sampson Distance: A New Approach to Improving Visual-Inertial Odometry's Accuracy" in Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Prague, Czech Republic, 2021.
  • L. Jin, H. Zhang, and C. Ye, "A Wearable Robotic Device for Assistive Navigation and Object Manipulation," in Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Prague, Czech Republic, 2021.
  • H. Zhang and C. Ye, "DUI-VIO: Depth Uncertainty Incorporated Visual Inertial Odometry based on an RGB-D Camera," in Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Las Vegas, Oct. 25-29, 2020.
  • H. Zhang, L. Jin, and C. Ye, "The VCU-RVI Benchmark: Evaluating Visual Inertial Odometry for Indoor Navigation Applications with an RGB-D Camera," in Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Las Vegas, Oct. 25-29, 2020.
  • H. Zhang and C. Ye, "A Visual Positioning System for Indoor Blind Navigation," in Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Paris (Virtual), May 31-June 4, 2020.
  • H. Zhang and C. Ye, "Human-Robot Interaction for Assisted Wayfinding of a Robotic Navigation Aid for the Blind," in 12th IEEE Conference on Human System Interaction (HSI), Richmond, Virginia, June 25-27, 2019, pp. 137-142. (Best Conference Paper Award).
  • H. Zhang, L. Jin, Hao Zhang, C. Ye, "A Comparative Analysis of Visual-Inertial SLAM for Assisted Wayfinding of the Visually Impaired," in IEEE Winter Conference on Applications of Computer Vision (WACV), Hawaii, Jan. 7-11, 2019, pp. 210-217.
  • H. Zhang and C. Ye, "Plane-Aided Visual-Inertial Odometry for Pose Estimation of a 3D Camera based Indoor Blind Navigation," in Proceedings of British Machine Vision Conference (BMVC), London, Sep. 4-7, 2017.
  • H. Zhang and C. Ye, "An Indoor navigation aid for the visually impaired," in IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics (ROBIO), Qingdao, China, Dec. 3-7, 2016, pp. 467-472. (Finalist of Best Conference Paper Award).

Is there any personal experience you would like to share?

My favorite anime is “one piece.” I love its adventurous spirit and the ties between Luffy and his Nakama. As a captain, he accepts his Nakama as who they are, and he trusts and protects them with his life. In real life, Jesus is my captain who guides me through many adventures, one of which was computer science. Each course in CS is like an unexplored island in the Grand Line, with different bosses and treasures. Let’s go and get them.

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