Publications

[J14] Dynamic Neural Koopman Distillation for Real-Time Robot Control Using Diffusion Models
Lei Zheng*, P. Yu, Z. Peng, C. Liu, and A. Lederer
Under review at IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 2026

[J13] Occlusion-Aware Contingency Safety-Critical Planning for Autonomous Vehicles
Lei Zheng, R. Yang, M. Zheng, Z. Peng, M. Y. Wang, and J. Ma*
IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics, vol. 56, no. 5, pp. 2777–2790, 2026

[J12] Safe and Real-Time Consistent Planning for Autonomous Vehicles in Partially Observed Environments via Parallel Consensus Optimization
Lei Zheng, R. Yang, M. Zheng, M. Y. Wang, and J. Ma*
IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, vol. 27, no. 5, pp. 5174–5190, 2026

[J11] LearningFlow: Automated Policy Learning Workflow for Urban Driving With Large Language Models
Z. Peng, Y. Wang, X. Han, Lei Zheng, and J. Ma*
IEEE Transactions on Artificial Intelligence, accepted, 2026

[J10] Safe and Non-Conservative Contingency Planning for Autonomous Vehicles via Online Learning-Based Reachable Set Barriers
R. Yang, Lei Zheng, S. S. Ge, and J. Ma*
IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, accepted, 2026

[J9] Contingency Planning for Safety-Critical Autonomous Vehicles: A Review and Perspectives
Lei Zheng, L. Zhang, P. Yu, Y. Sun, S. Grammatico, J. Ma, and C. Liu*
Under review at Annual Reviews in Control, 2026

[J8] Bayesian Learning-Based Safe Feedback Motion Planning for Disturbed Nonlinear Systems With Differential Flatness
R. Yang, Lei Zheng, S. S. Ge, and J. Ma*
Under review at Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence, 2025

[J7] Bilevel Multi-Armed Bandit-Based Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning for Interaction-Aware Self-Driving at Unsignalized Intersections
Z. Peng, Y. Wang, Lei Zheng, and J. Ma*
IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, vol. 74, no. 6, pp. 8824–8838, 2025

[J6] Synergizing Decision Making and Trajectory Planning Using Two-Stage Optimization for Autonomous Vehicles
W. Liu, H. Liu, Lei Zheng, Z. Huang, and J. Ma*
IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, vol. 74, no. 4, pp. 5489–5503, 2025

[J5] Barrier-Enhanced Parallel Homotopic Trajectory Optimization for Safety-Critical Autonomous Driving
Lei Zheng, R. Yang, M. Y. Wang, and J. Ma*
IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, vol. 26, no. 2, pp. 2169–2186, 2025

[J4] Spatiotemporal Receding Horizon Control with Proactive Interaction Towards Autonomous Driving in Dense Traffic
Lei Zheng, R. Yang, Z. Peng, M. Y. Wang, and J. Ma*
IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Vehicles, vol. 9, no. 11, pp. 6853–6868, 2024

[J3] Safe Learning-based Gradient-free Model Predictive Control Based on Cross-entropy Method
Lei Zheng, R. Yang, Z. Wu, J. Pan, and H. Cheng*
Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence, vol. 110, p. 104731, 2022

[J2] Safe Learning-Based Feedback Linearization Tracking Control for Nonlinear Systems With Event-Triggered Model Update
Z. Wu, R. Yang, Lei Zheng, and H. Cheng*
IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (Presented at ICRA), vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 3286–3293, 2022

[J1] Learning-Based Predictive Path Following Control for Nonlinear Systems Under Uncertain Disturbances
R. Yang, Lei Zheng, J. Pan, and H. Cheng*
IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (Presented at ICRA), vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 2854–2861, 2021