Welcome to Hang’s homepage!
About me
My name is Hang Zhou, and I am a Ph.D. student at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in the Connected & Autonomous Transportation Systems (CATS) Laboratory, advised by Prof. Xiaopeng “Shaw” Li. I got a Master’s degree from UW–Madison at 2025 and a Bachelor’s degree from Huazhong University of Science and Technology at 2023, where I worked with Prof. Hu Qin and Prof. Chun Cheng.
Research interests
My research mainly applies methods from artificial intelligence and optimization to address the challenges posed by emerging technologies in transportation. My current research focuses on Production Automated Vehicle (PAV) evaluation. Since PAV manufacturers always do not disclose the internal control algorithms, we propose a data-driven pipeline for evaluating PAV performance from PAV-related data. To promote research across different steps of this pipeline, we initiated an open-source ecosystem: the OpenPAV platform. Our goal is to establish a billboard showcasing the performance ranking of various PAV brands to offer the public a scientific reference.
Besides, I’m also interested in the routing, trajectory planning, and montion control of robotics and urban air mobility. I’m always trying to integrate theoretical analysis with physical tests.
News
Jul 2026: I presented three posters at the 2026 IEEE IV 2026.
May 2026: I presented our urban air mobility study at NGTS 2026 and the UIUC graduate student seminar.
Apr 2026: I received the Excellence in Research Award from UW-Madison CEE.
Mar 2026: I received the Student Research Grants Competition (SRGC) Award from UW-Madison.
Jan 2026: I gave an invited talk at Florida State University graduate student seminar about the urban air mobility traffic flow.
Nov 2025: I have passed my preliminary exam with the dissertation titled “A Data-Driven Pipeline for the Safety Evaluation of Production Automated Vehicles.” Grateful to my committee and lab members for their support!
Website last updated: July 6, 2026.