Yuchen Wu

Senior Software Engineer · Nuro

I am a Senior Software Engineer at Nuro, working on multi-modal sensor simulation and closed-loop simulation for end-to-end autonomy training and evaluation. My current work centers on large-scale scene reconstruction and neural rendering (NeRF, 3D Gaussian Splatting), generative world modeling, and feed-forward reconstruction models.

Previously, I received my MASc in Aerospace Science and Engineering from the University of Toronto, where I was advised by Tim Barfoot in the Autonomous Space Robotics Laboratory. My thesis generalized the Teach & Repeat navigation framework (VT&R3) to lidar, radar, and vision. Earlier, I completed my BASc in Engineering Science (Robotics) at UofT, working with Florian Shkurti and Jonathan Kelly on reinforcement and imitation learning.

Brief Bio

May 2024 – PresentSenior Software Engineer, Nuro (Mountain View, USA)
Nov 2022 – Apr 2024Software Engineer, Nuro (Toronto, Canada)
2020 – 2022M.A.Sc., University of Toronto — advisor Tim Barfoot
May 2018 – May 2019Software Engineer Intern, Intel (HLS Compiler / FPGA SDK for OpenCL)
2015 – 2020B.A.Sc., University of Toronto — Engineering Science (Robotics)

Research Interests

Multi-Modal Sensor Simulation, Scene Reconstruction, Closed-Loop Simulation, Neural Rendering (NeRF, 3D Gaussian Splatting), Generative World Modeling, Robot State Estimation, SLAM, Multi-Sensor Calibration.

Publications

	Along Similar Lines: Local Obstacle Avoidance for Long-term Autonomous Path Following Jordy Sehn, Yuchen Wu, Timothy D. Barfoot Conference on Robots and Vision (CRV), 2023 paper / code / bibtex
	Picking Up Speed: Continuous-Time Lidar-Only Odometry using Doppler Velocity Measurements Yuchen Wu, David J. Yoon, Keenan Burnett, Soeren Kammel, Yi Chen, Heethesh Vhavle, Timothy D. Barfoot IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L), 2023 · presented at ICRA 2023 paper / code / bibtex
	Boreas: A Multi-Season Autonomous Driving Dataset Keenan Burnett, David J. Yoon, Yuchen Wu, Andrew Zou Li, Haowei Zhang, Shichen Lu, Jingxing Qian, Wei-Kang Tseng, Andrew Lambert, Keith Y.K. Leung, Angela P. Schoellig, Timothy D. Barfoot International Journal of Robotics Research (IJRR), 2023 website / paper / video / code / bibtex
	Are We Ready for Radar to Replace Lidar in All-Weather Mapping and Localization? Keenan Burnett, Yuchen Wu, David J. Yoon, Angela P. Schoellig, Timothy D. Barfoot IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L), 2022 · presented at IROS 2022 paper / video / code / bibtex
	Shaping Rewards for Reinforcement Learning with Imperfect Demonstrations using Generative Models Yuchen Wu, Melissa Mozifian, Florian Shkurti IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2021 paper / bibtex

Demonstrations

Visual Teach & Repeat using Deep Learned Features
Mona Gridseth, Yuchen Wu, Timothy D. Barfoot
Demo at International Conference on 3D Vision (3DV), 2021
video / code

Open Source Projects

Visual Teach & Repeat 3 (VT&R3)
Yuchen Wu, Ben Congram, Daniel Guo
Open Source Project
website / video / code

Theses

MASc Thesis — VT&R3: Generalizing the Teach & Repeat Navigation Framework. University of Toronto, 2022.

BASc Thesis — Combining Reinforcement and Imitation Learning through Reward Shaping for Continuous Control. University of Toronto, 2020.

Honors

2020Vector Scholarship in Artificial Intelligence — Vector Institute
2020CRA Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher, Honorable Mention — Computing Research Association
2015 – 2020Dean's Honours List — University of Toronto
2019University of Toronto Excellence Award (UTEA)
2017Garnet W. McKee – Lachlan Gilchrist Scholarship — University of Toronto

Miscellaneous

2024Conference Reviewer — IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)
Sept 2021 – June 2022Student Advisor — aUToronto Self-Driving Team (1st overall in SAE AutoDrive Challenge Series II, 2022)
Fall 2021Teaching Assistant — ROB310: Mathematics for Robotics, University of Toronto
Sept 2018 – May 2019Academic Lead — Machine Intelligence Student Team (MIST), University of Toronto