Dr. Siyuan (Hunter) Zhang is the research engineer and lab manager of Autonomous Vehicle Mobility at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). His research areas contain virtualization of unstructured terrain environment and dynamics of mechanical and mechatronic systems of autonomous ground vehicles, including i) dynamics of distributed/virtual electric driveline systems of fully electric vehicles and ii) vehicle performance control systems. Before joining WPI, he has been coordinating and supervising five industry collaborative research projects (~$1Million) and successfully presented the work at international conferences over the past years. He also has more than 100 hours of in-class teaching experiencing regarding vehicle dynamics, driveline system, hybrid electric vehicles, etc. He is the member of ASME Vehicle Design Committee. He serves as the reviewer and organizer for several journals and international conferences, including Journal of Terramechanics, Journal of Autonomous Vehicle and Systems, Vehicle system dynamics, ASME IDETC/CIE, SAE WCX, ISTVS, IAVSD, etc. 

Technical Reports

  • Vladimir Vantsevich and Siyuan Zhang, Autonomous Driving System: Real-Time Control of Maneuver and Energy Efficiency, and Dynamic Path Planning Strategy Based on Visual Sensoring (220 pages), 2021 Collaborative Research Project Report with Sountern Compnay Services, Inc. 
  • Misko S, Zhang S, Ghasemi M et al. Assessment and Virtualization of Tire-Soft Soil Interactions for Real-time Evaluation and Control of Autonomous Vehicle Mobility. Federal Award No. W56HZV-19-2-0001, ARC Annual Report. 2021 September.
  • Vladimir Vantsevich and Siyuan Zhang, Fully Electric Unmanned Ground Vehicle: Virtual Driveline Concept and Control Design to Advance UGV’s Operational Properties (171 pages), 2021 Collaborative Research Project Report with Sountern Compnay Services, Inc. 
  • Vladimir Vantsevich and Siyuan Zhang, A Rotation Kinematics Sensor for A fully Electric Vehicle: Multi-Domain Modeling, Hardware Prototyping and Experimental Research (96 pages), 2020 Collaborative Research Project Report with Sountern Compnay Services, Inc. 
  • Vladimir Vantsevich and Siyuan Zhang,  A Fully Electric Virtual Vehicle Demonstrator with Distributed Driveline and Suspension System (133 pages), 2019 Collaborative Research Project Report with Sountern Compnay Services, Inc. 
  • Vladimir Vantsevich and Siyuan Zhang, Electrically-Driven Wheel Locomotion Module Virtual Demonstrator with Agile Sensoring (178 pages), 2022 Collaboartive Research Project Report with Sountern Compnay Services, Inc. 2018 Collaboartive Research Project Report with Sountern Compnay Services, Inc.

Publications and Technical Presentations

  • L. Zhao, P. Qin, S. Gao, S. Zhang, V. V. Vantsevich and Z. Liu, "A Linear Variable Parameter Observer-Based Road Profile Height Estimation for Suspension Nonlinear Dynamics Improvements," in IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, doi: 10.1109/TVT.2023.3247790.
  • Zhang, S., Vantsevich, V., Gorsich, D., and Letherwood, M., "Virtual Driveline Concept-Based Maneuverability Control of a Skid-Steering UGV with Individually Driven Wheels," SAE Technical Paper 2022-01-0366, 2022, https://doi.org/10.4271/2022-01-0366.
  • Misko S, Zhang S et al. Real-time, Closed-Loop and Physics-based Modeling and Simulation System for Unmanned Ground Vehicles in Unstructured Terrain Environments. 2022 NDIA Michigan Chapter Ground Vehicle Systems Engineering and Technology Symposium. 2022 August.
  • Zhang, S., Salama, M. and Vantsevich, V., “Response Time Analysis of Driveline System of Open-Link Locomotion Module for Improving Agile Tire Off-Road Dynamics”, 15th European-African Regional Conference of the International Society for Terrain-Vehicle Systems, September 9 – 11, Prague, 2019.
  • Zhang, S., Vantsevich, V.V., “A Mechanical Analogy for Modeling Virtual Electric Drivelines”, Powertrain Student Panel at SAE Commercial Vehicle conference, September 9 – 11, Indianapolis, 2019
  • Zhang, S. and Vantsevich, V., “Turnability of a Small UGV with Individual Wheel Skid-Steering on Soft Terrain”, ASME 2018 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences & Computers and Information in Engineering Conference (IDETC/CIE), August 26-29, Quebec City, 2018 (Best Paper Award at the conference)
  • Zhang, S., Salama, M. and Vantsevich, V., “Wheeled skid-steer UGV Modeling: New steering inputs for mobility improvement”, 10th Asia-Pacific conference of the International Society for Terrain-Vehicle Systems, July 11-13, Kyoto, 2018
  • Zhang, S. and Vantsevich, V., “Modelling of An Unmanned Ground Vehicle with New Skid-Steering Inputs”, 19th International & 14th European-African Regional Conference of the International Society for Terrain-Vehicle Systems, September 25-27, Budapest, 2017
  • Wang, B., Zhang, S., Zhao, L and Vantsevich, V., “An Analysis of Open Architecture System Approach to The Individual Propulsion System of Electric Vehicles”, The 17h Annual Early Career Technical Conference, Birmingham, November 4-5, 2017
  • Zhang, S. and Vantsevich, V., “Tractor Power Hop: Wheel normal Reaction analysis”, The 16th Annual Early Career Technical Conference, Birmingham, November 5-6, 2016
  • Zhang, S., Vantsevich, V. and Way, T., “Power Hop: Tractor-Driveline Torsional Coupled Dynamics”, Presentation at 8th Americas Regional Conference of the International Society for Terrain-Vehicle Systems, September 12-14, Detroit, MI, 2016
Hunter Zhang