I am an Assistant Professor at the Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences (IIIS), Tsinghua University. My research combines physics simulation, machine learning, and numerical optimization techniques to solve real-world inverse dynamics problems. Some of my recent research topics are building differentiable simulation platforms for graphics and robotics research, developing computational design pipelines for real-world robots, and understanding simulation-to-reality transfer of dynamic systems.
Before joining Tsinghua, I was a Postdoctoral Associate at MIT CSAIL, advised by Wojciech Matusik and Daniela Rus. I completed my Ph.D. in Computer Science (2021) at MIT under the supervision of Wojciech Matusik. I obtained my Master's in Computer Science (2015) from Stanford University and my Bachelor's in Computer Software (2013) from Tsinghua University.
To prospective students: I am actively looking for students to work on topics in computer graphics, machine learning, and robotics. Students with relevant backgrounds in math, physics, and computer science are all welcome to contact me. Please feel free to drop me an email if you are interested.
08/2022: One paper is accepted to SIGGRAPH Asia 2022.
07/2022: Recognized by ICML 2022 as an Outstanding Reviewer.
07/2022: Two papers are accepted to IROS 2022.
(* indicates equal contributions) (See my Google Scholar page for an up-to-date list)
Fluidic Topology Optimization with an Anisotropic Mixture Model
Yifei Li, Tao Du, Sangeetha Grama Srinivasan, Kui Wu, Bo Zhu, Eftychios Sifakis, Wojciech Matusik. ACM Transactions on Graphics 2022 (SIGGRAPH Asia 2022)
Fast Aquatic Swimmer Optimization with Differentiable Projective Dynamics and Neural Network Hydrodynamic Models
Elvis Nava, John Z. Zhang, Mike Yan Michelis, Tao Du, Pingchuan Ma, Benjamin F. Grewe, Wojciech Matusik, Robert K. Katzschmann, ICML 2022
DiffCloth: Differentiable Cloth Simulation with Dry Frictional Contact
Yifei Li, Tao Du, Kui Wu, Jie Xu, Wojciech Matusik. ACM Transactions on Graphics 2022 (SIGGRAPH 2022)
RISP: Rendering-Invariant State Predictor with Differentiable Simulation and Rendering for Cross-Domain Parameter Estimation
Pingchuan Ma*, Tao Du*, Joshua B. Tenenbaum, Wojciech Matusik, Chuang Gan. ICLR 2022 (Oral)
Contact Points Discovery for Soft-Body Manipulations with Differentiable Physics
Sizhe Li*, Zhiao Huang*, Tao Du, Hao Su, Joshua B. Tenenbaum, Chuang Gan. ICLR 2022 (Spotlight)
DiffPD: Differentiable Projective Dynamics
Tao Du, Kui Wu, Pingchuan Ma, Sebastien Wah, Andrew Spielberg, Daniela Rus, Wojciech Matusik. ACM Transactions on Graphics 2022 (SIGGRAPH 2022)
Dynamic Visual Reasoning by Learning Differentiable Physics Models from Video and Language
Mingyu Ding, Zhenfang Chen, Tao Du, Ping Luo, Joshua B. Tenenbaum, Chuang Gan. NeurIPS 2021
Advanced Soft Robot Modeling in ChainQueen
Andrew Spielberg, Tao Du, Yuanming Hu, Daniela Rus, Wojciech Matusik. Robotica 2021
Fusion 360 Gallery: A Dataset and Environment for Programmatic CAD Reconstruction
Karl D.D. Willis, Yewen Pu, Jieliang Luo, Hang Chu, Tao Du, Joseph G. Lambourne, Armando Solar-Lezama, Wojciech Matusik. ACM Transactions on Graphics 2021 (SIGGRAPH 2021)
DiffAqua: A Differentiable Computational Design Pipeline for Soft Underwater Swimmers with Shape Interpolation
Pingchuan Ma, Tao Du, John Z. Zhang, Kui Wu, Andrew Spielberg, Robert K. Katzschmann, Wojciech Matusik. ACM Transactions on Graphics 2021 (SIGGRAPH 2021)
Underwater Soft Robot Modeling and Control with Differentiable Simulation
Tao Du*, Josie Hughes*, Sebastien Wah, Wojciech Matusik, Daniela Rus. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters 2021 (RoboSoft 2021)
PlasticineLab: A Soft-Body Manipulation Benchmark with Differentiable Physics
Zhiao Huang, Yuanming Hu, Tao Du, Siyuan Zhou, Hao Su, Joshua B. Tenenbaum, Chuang Gan. ICLR 2021 (Spotlight)
Functional Optimization of Fluidic Devices with Differentiable Stokes Flow
Tao Du, Kui Wu, Andrew Spielberg, Wojciech Matusik, Bo Zhu, Eftychios Sifakis. ACM Transactions on Graphics 2020 (SIGGRAPH Asia 2020)
Efficient Continuous Pareto Exploration in Multi-Task Learning
Learning-in-the-Loop Optimization: End-to-End Control and Co-Design of Soft Robots through Learned Deep Latent Representations
Andrew Spielberg, Allan Zhao, Yuanming Hu, Tao Du, Daniela Rus, Wojciech Matusik. NeurIPS 2019
Learning to Fly: Computational Controller Design for Hybrid UAVs with Reinforcement Learning
Jie Xu, Tao Du, Michael Foshey, Beichen Li, Bo Zhu, Adriana Schulz, Wojciech Matusik. ACM Transactions on Graphics 2019 (SIGGRAPH 2019)
InverseCSG: Automatic Conversion of 3D Models to CSG Trees
Tao Du, Jeevana Priya Inala, Yewen Pu, Andrew Spielberg, Adriana Schulz, Daniela Rus, Armando Solar-Lezama, Wojciech Matusik. ACM Transactions on Graphics 2018 (SIGGRAPH Asia 2018)
Computational Multicopter Design
Tao Du, Adriana Schulz, Bo Zhu, Bernd Bickel, Wojciech Matusik. ACM Transactions on Graphics 2016 (SIGGRAPH Asia 2016)
[Project] [Paper] [Code (design)] [Code (control)] [Hardware]
Convolutional Wasserstein Distances: Efficient Optimal Transportation on Geometric Domains
Justin Solomon, Fernando de Goes, Gabriel Peyré, Marco Cuturi, Adrian Butscher, Andy Nguyen, Tao Du, Leonidas Guibas. ACM Transactions on Graphics 2015 (SIGGRAPH 2015)
The Power of Gradients in Inverse Dynamics Problems
A summary of our recent works on inverse dynamics problems.
Program Committee:
PG, EG (short papers)
Journal paper reviewer:
TOG, IJRR, T-RO, RA-L
Conference paper reviewer:
SIGGRAPH, SIGGRAPH Asia, PG,
NeurIPS (Outstanding Reviewer), ICLR, ICML (Outstanding Reviewer), RSS, ICRA, IROS