Fitting machines with "eyes": an interdisciplinary global journey from a ZJU undergraduate

A 2022-intake undergraduate in Robotics Engineering at Zhejiang University (ZJU), PENG Ziyue is doing more than just building robots—he is giving them a sense of sight. Driven by a steadfast mission to serve humanity through technology, PENG has dedicated his academic career to dismantling the barriers of machine vision, taking his research from local laboratories to the most prestigious scientific stages in the world.

PENG’s research journey began under the mentorship of Professor SHU Yuanchao at ZJU’s College of Control Science and Engineering. While spearheading a National Undergraduate Training Program for Innovation, PENG successfully developed a versatile, reusable software framework for multi-robot systems. However, a pivotal breakthrough occurred during a routine mapping exercise: he realized that relying solely on radar sensors left robots blind to the rich, nuanced textures of the visual world.

Refusing to be confined by the boundaries of a single curriculum, PENG embarked on a self-taught odyssey. He mastered computer graphics from the ground up, pivoting his focus toward the high-stakes field of Computer Vision to bridge the gap between raw data and true environmental understanding.

This thirst for cutting-edge knowledge soon propelled him across international borders. During his junior year, PENG joined the University of Toronto as an exchange scholar. Working alongside Professor Lueder Kahrs, he tackled three dimensional scene simulation for surgical robots—a project that directly enhanced the execution success rates of robotic medical procedures.

Upon returning to ZJU, PENG continued his deep dive into image multi-label annotation research under the guidance of Professor CHEN Wei at the College of Computer Science and Technology. By June 2025, PENG’s trajectory led him to the University of Texas at Austin. Under the supervision of Professor HUANG Qixing, he is currently pioneering physical understanding—a burgeoning field that aims to evolve machine vision from simple geometric 3D reconstruction to genuine, physics-based interaction.

Despite his hardcore technical pedigree, PENG is far from a one-dimensional researcher. During the Hangzhou Asian Games, he served as a vital IT volunteer, ensuring the real-time accuracy of race results through the RPDS system. When he isn't in the lab, he can be found at the piano or in the swimming pool, living by his personal mantra: Work is for a better life.

Moving beyond the ZJU campus and onto the international stage, PENG Ziyue has done more than just advance robotic perception. He has become a global ambassador for his generation—demonstrating a relentless drive to explore the unknown and a profound sense of responsibility to serve society through technological innovation. From the classrooms of Hangzhou to the frontiers of global research, PENG is proving that the future of robotics lies not just in how machines move, but in how they understand the world we share.
Adapted and translated from the article written by DENG Yaoyao, Dong Xiaomeng
Translator: LU Yihsuan ('2028, Literature)
Photo: PENG Ziyue
Editor: JIANG Chenqi ('2027, Structural Engineering), HAN Xiao