Mingjia Chen

Mingjia Chen (陈铭佳)

Undergraduate Student in Automation

Nanjing Normal University

Nanjing, China

About Me

I am Mingjia Chen (陈铭佳), an undergraduate student in Automation at the School of Electrical and Automation Engineering, Nanjing Normal University. My research focuses on autonomous robots operating in partially observable and dynamic environments. I am particularly interested in how robots can understand a scene, predict future changes, formulate useful tasks, and improve their decisions through execution feedback.

Research Interests

Embodied AI: autonomous task formulation, large-language-model planning, semantic memory, and closed-loop execution.
Multi-Robot Systems: distributed perception, dynamic coverage, active gathering, and task allocation.
Robot Learning: reinforcement learning, sim-to-real deployment, legged locomotion, and long-range navigation.

Education

Direct-entry Ph.D. in Intelligent Science and Technology, Nanjing University, 2027–.

B.E. in Automation, Nanjing Normal University, 2023–Present.

Current Work

I am currently working on the CAFE framework for autonomous task formulation and execution, dynamic multi-robot coverage planning, and sim-to-real deployment on mobile and quadruped robots. My work combines semantic memory, prediction, planning, and feedback to improve decision making under uncertainty.

Selected Honors

Year	Honor	Award
2026	RoboCup China, 3D Simulation League	National First Prize · Runner-up
2025	National Embedded Chip and System Design Competition	National Third Prize
2025	Lanqiao Cup, MCU Track	National Excellence Award
2025	Jiangsu Robotics Competition	First Prize
2024	Global Campus AI and Algorithm Innovation Competition	National Second Prize

I have also received the First-Class Outstanding Student Scholarship, Merit Student honor, Outstanding Communist Youth League Member honor, and the university’s Outstanding Individual in Summer Social Practice award.

Hobbies

Outside the lab, I enjoy travelling, photography, reading, and staying active.

selected publications

TASE

CAFE: Closed-Loop Autonomous Task Formulation and Execution without Explicit Task Input

Mingjia Chen, Xuewen Zhao, Jun Chen, and 3 more authors

Project materials coming soon. , 2026

Under review at IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering

Bib

@unpublished{chen2026cafe,
  title = {CAFE: Closed-Loop Autonomous Task Formulation and Execution without Explicit Task Input},
  author = {Chen, Mingjia and Zhao, Xuewen and Chen, Jun and Mao, Qi and Xie, Fei and Dames, Philip},
  year = {2026},
  note = {Under review at IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering},
}

MDCPP

MDCPP: Multi-Robot Dynamic Coverage Path Planning for Workload Adaptation

Jun Chen, Mingjia Chen, and S. Park

2026

Manuscript

Bib

@unpublished{chen2026mdcpp,
  title = {MDCPP: Multi-Robot Dynamic Coverage Path Planning for Workload Adaptation},
  author = {Chen, Jun and Chen, Mingjia and Park, S.},
  year = {2026},
  note = {Manuscript},
}

Energy

Influence of the Change Direction of Total Solar Irradiance at the Inclined Surface on Power Generation Performance of Photovoltaic Power Station: A Focus on Output Power and Photoelectric Conversion Efficiency

Qi Bao, Wei Qian, G. Ma, and 5 more authors

Energy, 2025

DOI Bib

@article{bao2025solar,
  title = {Influence of the Change Direction of Total Solar Irradiance at the Inclined Surface on Power Generation Performance of Photovoltaic Power Station: A Focus on Output Power and Photoelectric Conversion Efficiency},
  author = {Bao, Qi and Qian, Wei and Ma, G. and Qiu, X. and Zhang, H. and Zhou, H. and Chen, Mingjia and Li, S.},
  journal = {Energy},
  volume = {324},
  pages = {135975},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.1016/j.energy.2025.135975},
}

Frontiers

Distributed Multi-Robot Active Gathering for Non-Uniform Agriculture and Forestry Information

Jun Chen, Mingjia Chen, Jun Wang, and 3 more authors

Frontiers in Plant Science, 2025

DOI Bib

@article{chen2025activegathering,
  title = {Distributed Multi-Robot Active Gathering for Non-Uniform Agriculture and Forestry Information},
  author = {Chen, Jun and Chen, Mingjia and Wang, Jun and Mao, Qi and Xie, Fei and Dames, Philip},
  journal = {Frontiers in Plant Science},
  volume = {16},
  pages = {1699124},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.3389/fpls.2025.1699124},
}

Frontiers

PFEA: A VLM-Based High-Level Natural Language Planning and Feedback Embodied Agent for Human-Centered AI

Wenbin Ding, Jun Chen, Mingjia Chen, and 4 more authors

Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 2026

DOI Bib

@article{ding2026pfea,
  title = {PFEA: A VLM-Based High-Level Natural Language Planning and Feedback Embodied Agent for Human-Centered AI},
  author = {Ding, Wenbin and Chen, Jun and Chen, Mingjia and Xie, Fei and Wang, Jun and Yang, Simon X. and Dames, Philip},
  journal = {Frontiers in Robotics and AI},
  volume = {13},
  pages = {1905578},
  year = {2026},
  doi = {10.3389/frobt.2026.1905578},
}