For a complete list of publications, please refer to  Google Scholar

Selected Publications

  1. Sky-Drive: A Distributed Multi-Agent Simulation Platform for Human-AI Collaborative and Socially-Aware Future Transportation
    Zilin Huang+, Zihao Sheng+, Zhengyang Wan+, Yansong Qu, Yuhao Luo, Boyue Wang, Pei Li, Yen-Jung Chen, Jiancong Chen, Keke Long, Jiayi Meng, Yue Leng, and Sikai Chen*
    Journal of Intelligent and Connected Vehicles (accepted, in-press) , 2025
  2. A Survey on Vision-Language-Action Models for Autonomous Driving
    Sicong Jiang+, Zilin Huang+, Kangan Qian+, Ziang Luo, Tianze Zhu, Yang Zhong, Yihong Tang, Menglin Kong, Yunlong Wang, Siwen Jiao, Hao Ye, Zihao Sheng, Xin Zhao, Tuopu Wen, Zheng Fu, Sikai Chen, Kun Jiang, Diange Yang, Seongjin Choi, and Lijun Sun
    In Proceedings of the IEEE/CVF International Conference on Computer Vision Workshop (accepted, in-press) , 2025
  3. VLM-RL: A Unified Vision Language Models and Reinforcement Learning Framework for Safe Autonomous Driving
    Zilin Huang+, Zihao Sheng+, Yansong Qu+, Junwei You, and Sikai Chen*
    Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies , 2025
    DOI: 10.1016/j.trc.2025.105321
  4. PE-RLHF: Reinforcement Learning with Human Feedback and Physics Knowledge for Safe Autonomous Driving
    Zilin Huang, Zihao Sheng, and Sikai Chen*
    Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies , 2025
    DOI: 10.1016/j.trc.2025.105262
  5. Leveraging vehicle connectivity and autonomy for highway bottleneck congestion mitigation using reinforcement learning
    Paul Ha, Sikai Chen*, Jiqian Dong, and Samuel Labi
    Transportmetrica A: Transport Science , 2025
    DOI: 10.1080/23249935.2023.2215338
  6. Transfusor: Transformer diffusor for controllable human-like vehicle lane-changing trajectory generation
    Jiqian Dong, Sikai Chen*, Samuel Labi, and Tiantian Chen*
    Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies , 2025
    DOI: 10.1016/j.trc.2025.105396
  7. Physical enhanced residual learning (PERL) framework for vehicle trajectory prediction
    Keke Long, Zihao Sheng, Haotian Shi, Xiaopeng Li, Sikai Chen, and Soyoung Ahn
    Communications in Transportation Research , 2025
    DOI: 10.1016/j.commtr.2025.100166
  8. Talk2Traffic: Interactive and Editable Traffic Scenario Generation for Autonomous Driving with Multimodal Large Language Model
    Zihao Sheng, Zilin Huang, Yansong Qu, Yue Leng, and Sikai Chen*
    In Proceedings of the IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Workshops , 2025
    DOI: 10.1109/CVPRW67362.2025.00364
  9. CurricuVLM: Towards Safe Autonomous Driving via Personalized Safety-Critical Curriculum Learning with Vision-Language Models
    Zihao Sheng+, Zilin Huang+, Yansong Qu, Yue Leng, Sruthi Bhavanam, and Sikai Chen*
    Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies (Under review) , 2025
  10. SafePLUG: Empowering Multimodal LLMs with Pixel-Level Insight and Temporal Grounding for Traffic Accident Understanding
    Zihao Sheng, Zilin Huang, Yen-Jung Chen, Yansong Qu, Yuhao Luo, Yue Leng, and Sikai Chen*
    arXiv preprint arXiv:2508.06763 , 2025
  11. AI-Enabled Digital Twin Framework for Safe and Sustainable Intelligent Transportation
    Keke Long, Chengyuan Ma*, Hangyu Li, Zheng Li, Heye Huang, Haotian Shi, Zilin Huang, Zihao Sheng, Lei Shi, Pei Li, Sikai Chen, and Xiaopeng Li
    Sustainability , 2025
    DOI: 10.3390/su17104391
  12. VL-SAFE: Vision-Language Guided Safety-Aware Reinforcement Learning with World Models for Autonomous Driving
    Yansong Qu, Zilin Huang, Zihao Sheng, Jiancong Chen, Sikai Chen*, and Samuel Labi
    arXiv preprint arXiv:2505.16377 , 2025
  13. MetaSSC: Enhancing 3D Semantic Scene Completion for Autonomous Driving through Meta-Learning and Long-sequence Modeling
    Yansong Qu, Zixuan Xu, Zilin Huang, Zihao Sheng, Tiantian Chen, and Sikai Chen*
    Communications in Transportation Research , 2025
    DOI: 10.1016/j.commtr.2025.100184
  14. Personalizing Driver Agent Using Large Language Models for Driving Safety and Smarter Human-Machine Interactions
    Zixuan Xu, Tiantian Chen*, Zilin Huang, Yang Xing, and Sikai Chen*
    IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Magazine , 2025
    DOI: 10.1109/MITS.2025.3551736
  15. FollowGen: A Scaled Noise Conditional Diffusion Model for Car-Following Trajectory Prediction
    Junwei You, Rui Gan, Weizhe Tang, Zilin Huang, Jiaxi Liu, Zhuoyu Jiang, Haotian Shi*, Keshu Wu, Keke Long, Sicheng Fu, Sikai Chen*, and Bin Ran
    Communications in Transportation Research , 2025
    DOI: 10.1016/j.commtr.2025.100215
  1. Human as AI mentor: Enhanced human-in-the-loop reinforcement learning for safe and efficient autonomous driving
    Zilin Huang, Zihao Sheng, Chengyuan Ma, and Sikai Chen*
    Communications in Transportation Research , 2024
    DOI: 10.1016/j.commtr.2024.100127
  2. Toward C-V2X Enabled Connected Transportation System: RSU-Based Cooperative Localization Framework for Autonomous Vehicles
    Zilin Huang, Sikai Chen*, Yuzhuang Pian, Zihao Sheng, Soyoung Ahn, and David A Noyce
    IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems , 2024
    DOI: 10.1109/TITS.2024.3410185
  3. Traffic oscillation mitigation with physics-enhanced residual learning (PERL)-based predictive control
    Keke Long, Zhaohui Liang, Haotian Shi, Lei Shi, Sikai Chen*, and Xiaopeng Li*
    Communications in Transportation Research , 2024
    DOI: 10.1016/j.commtr.2024.100154
  4. Traffic expertise meets residual RL: Knowledge-informed model-based residual reinforcement learning for CAV trajectory control
    Zihao Sheng, Zilin Huang, and Sikai Chen*
    Communications in Transportation Research , 2024
    DOI: 10.1016/j.commtr.2024.100142
  5. Ego-planning-guided multi-graph convolutional network for heterogeneous agent trajectory prediction
    Zihao Sheng, Zilin Huang, and Sikai Chen*
    Computer-Aided Civil and Infrastructure Engineering , 2024
    DOI: 10.1111/mice.13301
  6. Kinematics-aware multigraph attention network with residual learning for heterogeneous trajectory prediction
    Zihao Sheng, Zilin Huang, and Sikai Chen*
    Journal of Intelligent and Connected Vehicles , 2024
    DOI: 10.26599/JICV.2023.9210036
  1. Why did the AI make that decision? Towards an explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) for autonomous driving systems
    Jiqian Dong, Sikai Chen*, Mohammad Miralinaghi, Tiantian Chen, Pei Li, and Samuel Labi
    Transportation research part C: emerging technologies , 2023
    DOI: 10.1016/j.trc.2023.104358
  2. Dynamic urban traffic rerouting with fog-cloud reinforcement learning
    Runjia Du, Sikai Chen*, Jiqian Dong, Tiantian Chen, Xiaowen Fu, and Samuel Labi
    Computer-Aided Civil and Infrastructure Engineering , 2023
    DOI: 10.1111/mice.13115
  3. Physics-informed deep reinforcement learning-based integrated two-dimensional car-following control strategy for connected automated vehicles
    Haotian Shi, Yang Zhou, Keshu Wu, Sikai Chen, Bin Ran, and Qinghui Nie
    Knowledge-Based Systems , 2023
    DOI: 10.1016/j.knosys.2023.110485
  4. Wi-CL: Low-Cost WiFi-Based Detection System for Nonmotorized Traffic Travel Mode Classification
    Runnan Xu, Zilin Huang*, Sikai Chen, Jinlong Li, Pan Wu, and Yongjie Lin
    Journal of Advanced Transportation , 2023
    DOI: 10.1155/2023/1033717
  5. A taxonomy for autonomous vehicles considering ambient road infrastructure
    Sikai Chen*, Shuya Zong, Tiantian Chen, Zilin Huang, Yanshen Chen, and Samuel Labi
    Sustainability , 2023
    DOI: 10.3390/su151411258
  6. Longitudinal control of connected and automated vehicles among signalized intersections in mixed traffic flow with deep reinforcement learning approach
    Chunyu Liu, Zihao Sheng, Sikai Chen*, Haotian Shi, and Bin Ran
    Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications , 2023
    DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2023.129189
  1. Development and testing of an image transformer for explainable autonomous driving systems
    Jiqian Dong, Sikai Chen*, Mohammad Miralinaghi, Tiantian Chen, and Samuel Labi
    Journal of Intelligent and Connected Vehicles , 2022
    DOI: 10.1108/JICV-06-2022-0021
  2. Leveraging UAV Capabilities for Vehicle Tracking and Collision Risk Assessment at Road Intersections
    Shuya Zong, Sikai Chen*, Majed Alinizzi, and Samuel Labi
    Sustainability , 2022
    DOI: 10.3390/su14074034
  1. Graph neural network and reinforcement learning for multi-agent cooperative control of connected autonomous vehicles
    Sikai Chen*, Jiqian Dong, Paul Ha, Yujie Li, and Samuel Labi
    Computer-Aided Civil and Infrastructure Engineering , 2021
    DOI: 10.1111/mice.12702
  2. Space-weighted information fusion using deep reinforcement learning: The context of tactical control of lane-changing autonomous vehicles and connectivity range assessment
    Jiqian Dong, Sikai Chen*, Yujie Li, Runjia Du, Aaron Steinfeld, and Samuel Labi
    Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies , 2021
    DOI: 10.1016/j.trc.2021.103192
  3. A cooperative crash avoidance framework for autonomous vehicle under collision-imminent situations in mixed traffic stream
    Runjia Du, Sikai Chen*, Yujie Li, Paul Young Joun Ha, Jiqian Dong, Panagiotis Ch Anastasopoulos, and Samuel Labi
    In 2021 IEEE International Intelligent Transportation Systems Conference (ITSC) , 2021
    DOI: 10.1109/ITSC48978.2021.9564937
  1. A deep learning algorithm for simulating autonomous driving considering prior knowledge and temporal information
    Sikai Chen, Yue Leng, and Samuel Labi
    Computer-Aided Civil and Infrastructure Engineering , 2020
    DOI: 10.1111/mice.12495