The Faculty of Innovation Engineering (FIE) of Macau University of Science and Technology has continuously promoted interdisciplinary integration and innovation in engineering science and technology by building high-level platforms for academic exchange and helping faculty and students engage with cutting-edge research and industrial application trends. To foster an open, diverse, and forward-looking academic environment and cultivate future leaders in science and engineering with interdisciplinary vision and innovation capabilities, FIE launched the “Distinguished Lecture Series,” inviting renowned scholars from China and abroad to share their research achievements, teaching experience, and practical insights. The fourth lecture of the series was successfully held on the afternoon of April 23, 2026, at the MUST LIU’s Innovation and Technology Center.
This lecture featured Professor Yu Liu from the School of Automation Science and Engineering, South China University of Technology, and the Engineering Research Center of Precision Electronic Manufacturing, Ministry of Education. Professor Jianxin Tang, Assistant Dean of FIE chaired this lecture and delivered welcome remarks. Attendees included Professor Qiao Sun, Dean of FIE, Associate Professor Kaizhou Gao from the Department of Engineering Science, Assistant Professor Guorong Weng from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, as well as graduate students and postdoctoral researchers of FIE attended the lecture. Participants discussed frontier developments and application prospects in intelligent robotics, industrial intelligent control, visual inspection, and multi-source fusion localization.
Professor Jianxin Tang delivering welcome remarks
Professor Liu delivered a keynote speech entitled “Intelligent Control, Visual Inspection, and Fusion Localization for Industrial Robots,” presenting his team’s work in three areas: intelligent control, visual inspection, and fusion localization for industrial robots. He noted that, with the continued advancement of national strategies including Made in China 2025, the 14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of the Robotics Industry, and the New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan, intelligent robotic systems are moving toward higher autonomy, stronger adaptability, greater safety, and more precise control. In response to the declining demographic dividend, intensifying market competition, and urgent needs in advanced manufacturing, healthcare, military applications, aerospace, and autonomous driving, industrial robots must overcome bottlenecks in complex system modeling, precision control, real-time perception, high-precision localization, and key core technologies.
Professor Liu then summarized the team’s main advances. In intelligent robotic control, the team addressed vibration suppression and precise tracking of flexible robotic manipulators under multi-source time-varying disturbances, coupled multiple constraints, and multi-arm collaboration, proposing methods such as disturbance observation, adaptive constrained control, distributed observation, and dynamic event-triggered control; these results have been applied to flexible manipulator testing platforms and industrial robotic systems. In intelligent visual inspection, the team developed real-time inspection methods based on high-precision general defect detection, few-shot segmentation, incremental learning, and knowledge-data joint-driven approaches to tackle limited defect samples, complex image backgrounds, and high false-recognition rates, with applications in solar cell defect inspection, TGV defect inspection, and IR hole transmittance inspection. In complex-scenario data fusion perception and localization, the team focused on dynamic target interference, sensor degradation, long-term error accumulation, and large-scale mapping, conducting research on multi-source heterogeneous data fusion, robust pose estimation, radiance-field-based visual relocalization, exposure-robust mapping, and high-precision point cloud mapping, supporting the development of a multi-sensor perception platform for mobile unmanned systems and the joint development of MEMS solid-state LiDAR.
Professor Yu Liu presenting his research work
Furthermore, Professor Liu shared the team’s achievements in research platforms, project leadership, publications, patent commercialization, and industry–academia–research collaboration, and held in-depth discussions with guests and students. Supported by platforms including the Engineering Research Center of Precision Electronic Manufacturing, Ministry of Education, and the Engineering Technology Research Center for High-Performance Motors and Intelligent Control, his team has led national major scientific research instrument projects, national key R&D programs, key projects of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and key R&D programs of Guangdong Province. The team has published in leading journals and conferences such as IEEE TAC, Automatica, CVPR, TNNLS, TCYB, and TMECH, and received the First Prize of the Guangdong Natural Science Award, the First Prize of the Guangdong Technological Invention Award, and the First Prize of the CAA Science and Technology Progress Award. Multiple authorized invention patents have been commercialized, and strategic partnerships have been established with several technology enterprises.
This lecture provided the faculty and students of FIE with a valuable opportunity for exchange and learning, enriching their knowledge in intelligent control, industrial vision, multi-sensor fusion, robotic systems, and intelligent manufacturing. It broadened academic horizons and deepened understanding of frontier developments in innovation engineering. The Faculty of Innovation Engineering will continue their efforts in organizing distinguished lectures, promoting academic excellence, and cultivating future leaders in science, technology, and engineering.
Group photo of the speaker and attendees
