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Junkai Tan谭浚楷

HKPFS Ph.D. Fellow PolyU AAE

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About

I am an HKPFS Ph.D. Fellow in the Department of Aeronautical and Aviation Engineering at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), advised by Prof. Wen-Hua Chen and affiliated with RCLAE.

Current work

I am exploring how Prof. Chen’s dual control for exploration and exploitation (DCEE) connects with active inference, studying how robots gather useful information while pursuing a task. My longer-term interests are world models and the links between autonomous control and cognitive neuroscience.

Recent Highlights

News archive

  1. Policy–safety separation under polygonal constraints: accepted by SCTS.

  2. Stackelberg attack–defense control: accepted by IEEE/CAA JAS as a regular paper.

  3. Resilient critic-learning control: available in IEEE TII Early Access.

  4. XJTU Graduate with Honor (2025–2026).

  5. Best Student Paper Award, IEEE ICAIS & ISAS · XJTU Qihang Role Model Nominee.

Selected Research

570 citations · Nov 2026 All publications

Earlier work

Safe reinforcement learning, prescribed-time control, and differential games, with applications to UAV–UGV coordination and human–UAV interaction.

  1. Detail of paths around polygonal obstacles.

    SCTS · 2026 · Accepted

    Separating control policy learning from safety enforcement under polygonal constraints

    Junkai Tan, S. Xue, H. Cao, D. Li, B. Chen

    Science China Technological Sciences, 2026.

  2. Actor–critic weight convergence with the two clock markers.

    IEEE TSMC · 2026

    Dual-Clock Guaranteed-Time Actor-Critic Optimal Control with Flexible Input Saturation

    Junkai Tan, S. Xue, H. Cao, B. Chen

    IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics: Systems, Early Access, pp. 1–14, 2026. IEEE Xplore

  3. Human-guided UAV flight in the indoor test area.

    IEEE TIE · 2026

    Fixed-time stochastic learning from human-UAV interaction with state-input constraints

    Junkai Tan, S. Xue, Q. Guan, Z. Guo, H. Cao, B. Chen

    IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, 73(2): 3071–3082, 2026. IEEE Xplore

  4. Leader and follower trajectories in the docking study.

    IEEE/CAA JAS · 2026

    Fixed-time hierarchical game-based unmanned aerial-ground vehicle docking control

    Junkai Tan, S. Xue, Z. Guo, H. Cao, B. Chen

    IEEE/CAA Journal of Automatica Sinica, 13(5): 1242–1244, 2026. IEEE Xplore

  5. Quadrotor and ground vehicle navigating the indoor test area.

    IEEE TASE · 2025ESI Highly Cited

    Hierarchical safe reinforcement learning control for leader-follower systems with prescribed performance

    Junkai Tan, S. Xue, H. Li, Z. Guo, H. Cao, B. Chen

    IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, 22: 19568–19581, 2025. IEEE Xplore

ADP-MATLAB

From equations to closed-loop experiments.

8 runnable examples MIT License

Explore the project GitHub
Recorded double-integrator simulation
Recorded state trajectories x one and x two over eight seconds in the ADP-MATLAB double-integrator example.

Education

2026 – present
Ph.D. student, Aeronautical and Aviation EngineeringThe Hong Kong Polytechnic UniversityAdvisor: Prof. Wen-Hua ChenHKPFS & PolyU Presidential Fellowship
2023 – 2026
M.E., Electrical EngineeringXi’an Jiaotong UniversityAdvisors: Prof. Hui Cao & Dr. Shuangsi XueStudent Pacesetter · National & Guodian Nanzi Special Scholarships
2019 – 2023
B.E., Electrical EngineeringXi’an Jiaotong University

Academic Service

Full service record

300+ peer reviews recorded on ORCID, including IEEE TAC, IEEE TCNS, IEEE TASE, IEEE TSMC: Systems, and IEEE L-CSS.

Conference reviewer, IEEE CDC · Session Chair, IEEE ICARM 2023.

Contact

Open to collaboration on safe learning, autonomous control, and low-altitude robotics.

junkai.tan@connect.polyu.hk Department of Aeronautical and Aviation Engineering
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong Campus directions

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