Yuki Shirai

Yuki Shirai
  • Position:
    Research / Technical Staff

    Postdoctoral Research Fellow
  • Education:
    Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles, 2024
  • Research Areas:
  • External Links:
Yuki's Quick Links

  • Biography

    Yuki's research focuses on planning, estimation, and control for contact-rich manipulation and locomotion, from spanning free-climbing robots to robotic tool manipulation. In particular, he has been working on contact-implicit trajectory optimization, stochastic optimization, contact modeling, and contact estimation using tactile sensing. His current research interests lie in the intersection of optimization and learning.

  • MERL Publications

    •  Shirai, Y., Jha, D.K., Raghunathan, A., Romeres, D., "Chance-Constrained Optimization for Contact-rich Systems using Mixed Integer Programming", Nonlinear Analysis: Hybrid Systems, December 2024.
      BibTeX TR2024-008 PDF
      • @article{Shirai2024dec,
      • author = {Shirai, Yuki and Jha, Devesh K. and Raghunathan, Arvind and Romeres, Diego},
      • title = {Chance-Constrained Optimization for Contact-rich Systems using Mixed Integer Programming},
      • journal = {Nonlinear Analysis: Hybrid Systems},
      • year = 2024,
      • month = dec,
      • url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2024-008}
      • }
    •  Shirai, Y., Jha, D.K., Raghunathan, A., "Robust Pivoting Manipulation using Contact Implicit Bilevel Optimization", IEEE Transactions on Robotics, DOI: 10.1109/​TRO.2024.3422053, pp. 3425-3444, July 2024.
      BibTeX TR2024-096 PDF Video
      • @article{Shirai2024jul,
      • author = {{Shirai, Yuki and Jha, Devesh K. and Raghunathan, Arvind}},
      • title = {Robust Pivoting Manipulation using Contact Implicit Bilevel Optimization},
      • journal = {IEEE Transactions on Robotics},
      • year = 2024,
      • pages = {3425--3444},
      • month = jul,
      • doi = {10.1109/TRO.2024.3422053},
      • issn = {1941-0468},
      • url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2024-096}
      • }
    •  Shirai, Y., Jha, D.K., Raghunathan, A., "Contact-Aware Covariance Control of Stochastic Contact-Rich Systems", IROS 2023 Workshop on Leveraging Models for Contact-Rich Manipulation, September 2023.
      BibTeX TR2023-120 PDF
      • @inproceedings{Shirai2023sep,
      • author = {Shirai, Yuki and Jha, Devesh K. and Raghunathan, Arvind},
      • title = {Contact-Aware Covariance Control of Stochastic Contact-Rich Systems},
      • booktitle = {IROS 2023 Workshop on Leveraging Models for Contact-Rich Manipulation},
      • year = 2023,
      • month = sep,
      • url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2023-120}
      • }
    •  Shirai, Y., Jha, D.K., Raghunathan, A., Romeres, D., "Chance-Constrained Optimization in Contact-rich Systems", American Control Conference (ACC), DOI: 10.23919/​ACC55779.2023.10156516, May 2023, pp. 14-21.
      BibTeX TR2023-061 PDF
      • @inproceedings{Shirai2023may4,
      • author = {Shirai, Yuki and Jha, Devesh K. and Raghunathan, Arvind and Romeres, Diego},
      • title = {Chance-Constrained Optimization in Contact-rich Systems},
      • booktitle = {American Control Conference (ACC)},
      • year = 2023,
      • pages = {14--21},
      • month = may,
      • publisher = {IEEE},
      • doi = {10.23919/ACC55779.2023.10156516},
      • url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2023-061}
      • }
    •  Shirai, Y., Jha, D.K., Raghunathan, A., "Covariance Steering for Uncertain Contact-Rich Systems", IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), DOI: 10.1109/​ICRA48891.2023.10160249, May 2023, pp. 7923-7929.
      BibTeX TR2023-024 PDF
      • @inproceedings{Shirai2023may3,
      • author = {Shirai, Yuki and Jha, Devesh K. and Raghunathan, Arvind},
      • title = {Covariance Steering for Uncertain Contact-Rich Systems},
      • booktitle = {IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)},
      • year = 2023,
      • pages = {7923--7929},
      • month = may,
      • publisher = {IEEE},
      • doi = {10.1109/ICRA48891.2023.10160249},
      • isbn = {979-8-3503-2365-8},
      • url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2023-024}
      • }
    See All MERL Publications for Yuki

  • Other Publications

    •  Yusuke Tanaka, Yuki Shirai, Xuan Lin, Alexander Schperberg, Hayato Kato, Alexander Swerdlow, Naoya Kumagai and Dennis Hong, "SCALER: A Tough Versatile Quadruped Free-Climber Robot", 2022 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2022, pp. 5632-5639.
      BibTeX
      • @Inproceedings{9981555,
      • author = {Tanaka, Yusuke and Shirai, Yuki and Lin, Xuan and Schperberg, Alexander and Kato, Hayato and Swerdlow, Alexander and Kumagai, Naoya and Hong, Dennis},
      • title = {SCALER: A Tough Versatile Quadruped Free-Climber Robot},
      • booktitle = {2022 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)},
      • year = 2022,
      • pages = {5632--5639}
      • }
    •  Yuki Shirai, Xuan Lin, Alexander Schperberg, Yusuke Tanaka, Hayato Kato, Varit Vichathorn and Dennis Hong, "Simultaneous Contact-Rich Grasping and Locomotion via Distributed Optimization Enabling Free-Climbing for Multi-Limbed Robots", 2022 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2022, pp. 13563-13570.
      BibTeX
      • @Inproceedings{9981579,
      • author = {Shirai, Yuki and Lin, Xuan and Schperberg, Alexander and Tanaka, Yusuke and Kato, Hayato and Vichathorn, Varit and Hong, Dennis},
      • title = {Simultaneous Contact-Rich Grasping and Locomotion via Distributed Optimization Enabling Free-Climbing for Multi-Limbed Robots},
      • booktitle = {2022 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)},
      • year = 2022,
      • pages = {13563--13570}
      • }
    •  Yuki Shirai, Xuan Lin, Ankur Mehta and Dennis Hong, "LTO: Lazy Trajectory Optimization with Graph-Search Planning for High DOF Robots in Cluttered Environments", 2021 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2021, pp. 7533-7539.
      BibTeX
      • @Inproceedings{9561502,
      • author = {Shirai, Yuki and Lin, Xuan and Mehta, Ankur and Hong, Dennis},
      • title = {LTO: Lazy Trajectory Optimization with Graph-Search Planning for High DOF Robots in Cluttered Environments},
      • booktitle = {2021 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)},
      • year = 2021,
      • pages = {7533--7539}
      • }
    •  Yuki Shirai, Xuan Lin, Yusuke Tanaka, Ankur Mehta and Dennis Hong, "Risk-Aware Motion Planning for a Limbed Robot with Stochastic Gripping Forces Using Nonlinear Programming", IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, Vol. 5, No. 4, pp. 4994-5001, 2020.
      BibTeX
      • @Article{9113247,
      • author = {Shirai, Yuki and Lin, Xuan and Tanaka, Yusuke and Mehta, Ankur and Hong, Dennis},
      • title = {Risk-Aware Motion Planning for a Limbed Robot with Stochastic Gripping Forces Using Nonlinear Programming},
      • journal = {IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters},
      • year = 2020,
      • volume = 5,
      • number = 4,
      • pages = {4994--5001}
      • }
    •  Kenji Nagaoka, Hayato Minote, Kyohei Maruya, Yuki Shirai, Kazuya Yoshida, Takeshi Hakamada, Hirotaka Sawada and Takashi Kubota, "Passive Spine Gripper for Free-Climbing Robot in Extreme Terrain", IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, Vol. 3, No. 3, pp. 1765-1770, 2018.
      BibTeX
      • @Article{8260908,
      • author = {Nagaoka, Kenji and Minote, Hayato and Maruya, Kyohei and Shirai, Yuki and Yoshida, Kazuya and Hakamada, Takeshi and Sawada, Hirotaka and Kubota, Takashi},
      • title = {Passive Spine Gripper for Free-Climbing Robot in Extreme Terrain},
      • journal = {IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters},
      • year = 2018,
      • volume = 3,
      • number = 3,
      • pages = {1765--1770}
      • }