Who Are We?
Founded in 2019 and directed by Prof. Tin Lun LAM, our research group collaborates with leading international experts to advance state-of-the-art robotic technologies. We drive their application in emerging domains, promote public awareness of robotics and AI, and aim to establish a world-class robotics research and innovation hub in Shenzhen.
Our team consists of highly skilled researchers with deep expertise in robotics and AI. Their work has appeared in premier international journals and conferences, including Science Robotics, Nature Communications, IJRR, T-RO, TPAMI, TIP, JFR, TMECH, RA-L, ICRA, and IROS. Notable achievements include the IEEE ICRA Best Conference Paper Award – Finalist (2025) and IEEE/RSJ IROS 2020 Best Paper Award on Robot Mechanisms and Design (2020), with coverage in prominent outlets such as IEEE Spectrum, Engadget, NHK, and CCTV.
Our Research Focus
The vision of the Freeform Robotics Research Group is to create a general-purpose robotic swarm whose units can physically connect to form arbitrary shapes and functionalities, adapting seamlessly to diverse environments and tasks. This approach has the potential to fundamentally transform how robotic systems are designed and deployed — an impact comparable to that of additive manufacturing in traditional manufacturing.
Keywords: multi-robot systems · self-reconfigurable robots · modular robots · collaborative environment perception · collaborative relative localization · collaborative manipulation · mobile collaboration · multi-robot multi-task planning · swarm intelligence · decentralized control