Xin Zhu

I am rising fifth year Ph.D. Candidate and Annenburg Fellow at University of Southern California, where I work at HaRVI lab advised by Prof. Heather Culbertson studying human-robot interaction, wearable device and haptics in social touch.

I received my Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science from Beijing Jiaotong University in 2017, where I was advised by Prof. Youfang Lin. My previous research experience includes Data Mining, Ditributed System when I was conducting research at BJTU INSIS Lab and now I am focusing on understanding human touch perception with wearable technology, integrating control algorithms with haptics and exploring multi-modality mediated social touch.

My overarching career ambition is to integrating haptic and robotic technology seamlessly into every household., and I am deeply appreciative of everyone who has supported me on this journey. Go together, go far, please feel free to reach out to me if you have any idea.

Email  /  LinkedIn  /  X  /  Google Scholar  / 

I'm interested in Social Touch, Human-Robot Interaction, Touch Perception Understanding, Haptic System Design. Representative papers are highlighted.

Previous studies on electrotactile perception have developed models to explain the relationship between physical and electrical parameters and perceived sensation, but there is no consensus due to the different implementation of stimulation systems. We aim to gain a deeper understanding of electrotactile perception by examining the effects of feedback location and frequency on perception.

Previous studies on electrotactile perception have developed models to explain the relationship between physical and electrical parameters and perceived sensation, but there is no consensus due to the different implementation of stimulation systems. We aim to gain a deeper understanding of electrotactile perception by examining the effects of feedback location and frequency on perception.

We proposed a novel method to abstract the wearable haptic device into a structural model, further detail will be released soon.

Novel method to create touch sensation, further detail will be released soon.

Novel Haptic system understands the human perception, further detail will be released soon.

We explore affective context as a combination of user relationships (specifically the closeness between pairs of users) and user culture. We share the design and implementation of the crossmodal system that takes up to ten seconds of vocal expression (including humming or singing) from one user and transposes it into haptic signals to be displayed to twelve vibration actuators worn on the forearm of the second user.

The Interactive Servo Matrix (ISM) is a novel system designed to generate complex touch gestures using an adaptable matrix of servo motors.

Wearable System that can sense human touch and recreate the touch sensation, explored gesture mapping algorithm and speed effect on emotion perception.

Data-driven sparse skin stimulation can convey social touch information to human

Wearable System that can sense human touch and recreate the touch sensation using force mapping and Voice Coil actuators.

Feel free to steal this website's source code, just add a link back to Jon's website.