Hi, there! This is Benyun Zhao (่ตต็่ต). I am a 3rd-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), where I obtained my Masterโs degree in 2021. I am a member of Unmanned System Research (USR) group and Hong Kong Centre for Logistics Robotics (HKCLR), supervised by Prof. Ben M. Chen and luckily having the chance to collaborate with Prof. Mark W. Mueller from HiPeRLab in UC Berkeley, Prof. Zhi Gao from Wuhan Univeristy and Prof. Xi Chen, Prof. Yun-hui Liu from CUHK.
My work focuses on engineering applications of computer vision based on unmanned systems in various fields, such as object detection, instance segmentation, VLM deployment, image enhancement, 3D scene understanding in Infrastructure, Underwater and Enviromental scenes. I am also open to collaborations and research opportunities. Please feel free to contact and discuss๐. (Email: benyunzhao@berkeley.edu)
๐ฅ Latest News
- 2025.07: ๐๐ One paper is accpeted by IEEE T-GRS and IEEE T-IM.
- 2025.07: ๐๐ One paper is accpeted by Building Simulation journal.
- 2025.06: ๐๐ One paper is accpeted by Sustainable Cities and Society journal.
- 2025.06: ๐๐ Two China Patents of our UAV CU-Astro are granted.
- 2025.06: ๐๐ One paper is accpeted by Sustainable Cities and Society journal.
- 2025.05: ๐ช๐ช Our work Feature-Homogenized Gaussian Splatting, which submitted to NeurIPS 2025, is online now!!!
- 2025.05: ๐๐ I am horned to have a chance to visit HiPeRLab in UC Berkeley and supervised by Prof. Mark W. Mueller.
- 2025.01: ๐๐ One US Patent of our 3D reconstruction technology is granted.
- 2025.01: ๐๐ Three papers are accpeted by IEEE ICRA 2025 Atlanta, GA, USA.
๐ Selected Publications
Equal Contribution โ , Corresponding author *
AI-empowered Digital Twin Modeling for High-precision Building Defect Management Integrating UAV and GeoBIM
J. Zhang, B. Zhao*, G. Yang, X. Zhou, Y. Huang, C. Gao, X. Chen and B. M. Chen
- Accepted at Building Simulation, 2025
Autonomous Building Material Stock Estimation using 3D Modeling and Multilayer Perceptron
Q. Li, B. Zhao*, X. Wang, G. Yang, X. Chen and B. M. Chen
- Accepted at Sustainable Cities and Society, 2025
Nature-inspired Dynamic Control for Pursuit-evasion of Robots
P. Zhou, S. Li, B. Zhao, B. Wahlberg, X. Hu
- Accepted at Automatica, 2025
Lightweight yet High-Performance Defect Detector for UAV-Based Large-Scale Infrastructure Real-Time Inspection
B. Zhao, Q. Duan, G. Yang, H. J. Tang, Z. Song, J. Wen, X. Liu, Q. Li, L. Lei, J. Zhang, X. Chen, M. W. Mueller, and B. M. Chen
End-to-End Underwater Multi-View Stereo for Dense Scene Reconstruction
G. Yang, J. Wen, B. Zhao, Y. Huang, L. Lei, X. Chen, A. Lam, and B. M. Chen
- Accepted at ICRA 2025 Atlanta, Underwater Robotics Tracking Oral
- Project
Multi-View Stereo with Geometric Encoding for Dense Scene Reconstruction
G. Yang, R. Cao, J. Wen, B. Zhao, Q. Li, Y. Huang, L. Lei, X. Chen, A. Lam, Y. Liu and B. M. Chen
- Accepted at ICRA 2025 Atlanta, Aerial Robotics Tracking Oral
- Project
WaterFormer: A Global-Local Transformer for Underwater Image Enhancement With Environment Adaptor
J. Wen, J. Cui, G. Yang, B. Zhao, Y. Zhai, Z. Gao, L. Dou and B. M. Chen
- Accepted at IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine, 2024
EnYOLO: A Real-Time Framework for Domain-Adaptive Underwater Object Detection with Image Enhancement
J. Wen, J. Cui, B. Zhao, B. Han, X. Liu, Z. Gao and B. M. Chen
- Accepted at ICRA 2024 Yokohama, Underwater Robotics Tracking Oral
SANet: Small but Accurate Detector for Aerial Flying Object
X. Zhou, B. Zhao*, G. Yang, J. Zhang, L. Li and B. M. Chen
- Accepted at ICRA 2024 Yokohama, Aerial Robotics Tracking Oral
Multi-View Stereo with Learnable Cost Metric
G. Yang, X Zhou, C. Gao, B. Zhao, J. Zhang, Y. Chen, X. Chen and B. M. Chen
- Accpeted at IROS 2023 Detroit, Aerial Robotics Tracking Oral
ADMNet: Anti-Drone Real-Time Detection and Monitoring
X Zhou, G. Yang, Y. Chen, C. Gao, B. Zhao, L. Li and B. M. Chen
- Accpeted at IROS 2023 Detroit, Aerial Robotics Tracking Oral
Datasets and processing methods for boosting visual inspection of civil infrastructure: A comprehensive review and algorithm comparison for crack classification, segmentation, and detection
G. Yang, K. Liu, J. Zhang, B. Zhao, Z. Zhao, X. Chen and B. M. Chen
- Accpeted at Construction and Building Materials, 2022
๐ป Experience
- 2025.05 - present: Visiting Student, HiPeRLab in UC Berkeley, supervised by Prof. Mark W. Mueller
- 2024.04 - 2025.05: Visiting Student, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, supervised by Prof. Zhenbo Song and Prof. Jianfeng Lu
- 2021.07 - 2022.07: Research Assistant, The Chinese University of Hong Kong & Hong Kong Centre for Logistics Robotics, supervised by Prof. Ben M. Chen and Prof. Yun-hui Liu
๐ Education
- 2022.08 - present: Ph.D. in Mechanical and Automation Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, supervised by Prof. Ben M. Chen
- 2020.09 - 2021.06: M.S. in Mechanical and Automation Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, supervised by Prof. Ben M. Chen
- 2018.09 - 2019.07: Exchange Student in Mechanical Engineering, Nanjing Tech University, supervised by Prof. Haihan Xu
- 2016.09 - 2020.07: B.Eng. in Mechanical Design, Manufacturing and Automation, Jiangsu Ocean University, supervised by Prof. Yiqiang He and Prof. Dazhi Huang
๐ผ Working and Internships
- 2025.01 - 2025.05, Teaching Assistant of ESTR1006 Multivariable Calculus (2024-2025 Semester 2), Instructor: Prof. Dongkun Han, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
- 2024.09 - 2025.12, Teaching Assistant of MAEG4040 Mechatronic System (2024-2025 Semester 1), Instructor: Prof. Xin Ma, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
- 2024.09 - 2025.06, Teaching Assistant of MAEG4998 Undergraduate Final Year Project, Instructor: Prof. Ben M. Chen, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
- Deep Learning-Based Detection and Segmentation of Building Faรงade Defects and Components: From Dataset Establishment to Drone Experiments (Student: Katerina Yim, won Champion of โVTech Innovation & Sustainability Award 2025โ and published one paper on the 19th IEEE ICCA 2025 Tallinn, Estonia)
- 2024.01 - 2024.05, Teaching Assistant of ESTR1006 Multivariable Calculus (2023-2024 Semester 2), Instructor: Prof. Dongkun Han, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
- 2023.09 - 2023.12, Teaching Assistant of MAEG4040 Mechatronic System (2023-2024 Semester 1), Instructor: Prof. Xin Ma, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
- 2023.09 - 2024.06, Teaching Assistant of MAEG5910 Master of Science Project, Instructor: Prof. Ben M. Chen,The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
- Learning-Based Large-Scale 3D Reconstruction: A Comparison between Multi-View Stereo and Neural Radiance Field (Student: Zhiqing Yu & Minghao Jia)
- 2022.09 - 2023.06, Teaching Assistant of MAEG5910 Master of Science Project, Instructor: Prof. Ben M. Chen, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
- Building Defects Detection based on YOLOv8 (Student: Guang Li)
- 2022.09 - 2023.06, Teaching Assistant of MAEG4998 Undergraduate Final Year Project, Instructor: Prof. Ben M. Chen, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
- Building Defect Dataset Establishment and Real-time Defect Detection (Student: Helen Fung)
- 2021.09 - 2022.06, Teaching Assistant of MAEG5910 Master of Science Project, Instructor: Prof. Ben M. Chen, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
- Defect Images Generation based on Generative Adversarial Network (Student: Mingjie Xie)
- Concrete Cracks Detection based on Semantic Segmentation (Student: Shiya Su)
- 2019.09 - 2019.10, Mechanical Engineer Intern, YTO Group Corporation, Luoyang, China.
- 2018.06 - 2018.08, Mechanical Engineer Intern, SINOPEC Jinling Company, Nanjing, China.
- 2017.06 - 2017.08, Mechanical Engineer Intern, SINOPEC Jinling Company, Nanjing, China.
๐ Honors and Patents
Postgraduate
- Utility Model Patent Certificate, China National Intellectual Property Administration, Shenzhen, 2025
- Design Patent Certificate, China National Intellectual Property Administration, Shenzhen, 2025
- 3D Reconstruction US Patent, US Patent and Trademark Office, Hong Kong, 2025
- Gold Award & Best Business Potential Award - ๐ฐHKD 100000 & ๐ฐHKD 5000, Chun Wo Innovation Student Awards, Hong Kong, 2023
- Best Business Idea Award - ๐ฐHKD 15000, YDC Dare To Change Business Pitch Competition, Hong Kong, 2023
- Champion - ๐ฐHKD 18000, Professor Charles K. Ko Student Creativity Award, Hong Kong, 2023
- Bronze Medal, 48th Geneva International Exhibition of Inventions, Geneva, Switzerland, 2023
- Postgraduate Studentship, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 2022-2026
Undergraduate
- Outstanding Undergraduate, Jiangsu Ocean University, 2020
- First Class Annual Scholarship, Jiangsu Ocean University, 2020, 2018, 2017
- First Class Annual Scholarship, Nanjing Tech University, 2019
- Second Prize, China RoboWork 2019 โSmall Quadrotor Projectโ, Shaoguan, 2019
- Champion, Mechanical Manufacturing Competition Solar Power Car Project, Lianyungang, 2018
๐ Academic Reviewer
- Journal Reviewer: IEEE T-ASE, T-SMC, T-Cyber, T-CSVT, Sensors Journal; Elsevier Pattern Recognition (PR), International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation (JAG), Automation in Construction (AIC), Advanced Engineering Informatics (AEI), Expert Systems with Applications (ESWA), Construction and Building Materials (CBM), Journal of the Franklin Institute (FI), Journal of Cleaner Production (JClePro); Springer Nature Heritage Science, Scientific Reports, Journal of Supercomputing, Signal Image and Video Processing, Discover Artificial Intelligence; Oxford University Press Journal of Computational Design and Engineering (JCDE); World Scientific Unmanned Systems;
- Conference Reviewer: IEEE ICRA 2025&2024, ISER 2025, IROS 2024, ICCA 2024&2023
๐ฌ Invited Conference
- 2023.07: International Symposium on Cooperative Autonomous Systems, at Pengcheng Laboratory, chaired by Prof. Ben M. Chen, Prof. Jie Chen and Prof. Hugh Liu
