Dr Hoi-Yin Lee (Samantha)

A Hybrid of Mechanical Engineering & Computing


I'm an enthusiastic & detail-oriented Robotics Researcher.


Passionate, Highly Motivated Mechanical & Computing Engineer.
Having a Bias for Action, Breaking down and Tackling complex problems efficiently.


Research Interests: Particles Manipulation, VLM, Multi-Robot Systems, and Automation.


Current Side Project: Can we upgrade the Modern Art?

(Art Upgrading Project with M+ Museum)


About Me


Currently, I am a postdoctoral fellow and a lab manager in the Robotic and Machine Intelligence Lab (ROMI-Lab) at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), under the guidance of Prof. David Navarro-Alarcon.


Prior to this, I was a PhD student in the ROMI-Lab at PolyU, where I successfully defended my doctoral dissertation in Mechanical Engineering in 2024.


Before that, I had the opportunity to work as a visiting scholar at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory in the United Kingdom, working under the supervision of Professor Chenguang (Charlie) Yang from the University of Liverpool.


🏆 Recent Achievements 🏆


2025

Best Innovation Merit Award

Multi-Scale Medical Robotics Center Symposium
Project: Iterative Shaping of Multi-Particle Aggregates Based on Action Trees and VLM
2024

Best Poster Award (Second Place)

The 10th East Asia Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Workshop
Project: Incremental-Based Non-Prehensile Tool Manipulation in Object Retrieval Under Environmental Constraints
2024

Best Presentation Award

PolyU Research Student Conference
Project: Non-Prehensile Tool-Object Manipulation by Integrating LLM-Based Planning and Manoeuvrability-Driven Controls
2022

Best AI Implementation Award

AI x HK OpenCup
Project: A Multi-Sensor Interface to improve the Education Quality in Arc Welding Training Tasks
2022

Best Innovation Award

Cathay Hackathon
Project: Metaverse In-Flight Entertainment
2021

Young Researcher Award

CNERC Annual Technical Symposium
Outstanding Performance in research.
2020

Rexroth Industry 4.0 Scholarship

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Outstanding Performance in the Robotics Project.

Selected Publications


2024-2025

Iterative Shaping of Multi-Particle Aggregates based on Action Trees and VLM

Authors: H.-Y. Lee, P. Zhou, A. Duan, C. Yang, and D. Navarro-Alarcon
IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L), 2025. Link
2023-2024

Non-Prehensile Tool-Object Manipulation by Integrating LLM-Based Planning and Manoeuvrability-Driven Controls

Authors: H.-Y. Lee, P. Zhou, A. Duan, W. Ma, C. Yang, and D. Navarro-Alarcon
IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics (T-IE), under review.
2021-2022

A Distributed Dynamic Framework to Allocate Collaborative Tasks Based on Capability Matching in Heterogeneous Multi-Robot Systems

Authors: H.-Y. Lee, P. Zhou, B. Zhang, L. Qiu, B. Fan, A. Duan, J. Tang, T. L. Lam, and D. Navarro-Alarcon
IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems (T-CDS), 2023 Link
2021-2022

A Multi-Sensor Interface to Improve the Teaching and Learning Experience in Arc Welding Training Tasks

Authors: H.-Y. Lee, P. Zhou, A. Duan, J. Wang, V. Wu, and D. Navarro-Alarcon
IEEE Transactions on Human-Machine Systems (T-HMS), 2023 Link