Changda Tian is a robotics researcher working on modular legged robot design and control — reconfigurable leg modules and learned locomotion. PhD fellow (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, RAICAM) at FORTH, Greece.https://cdtian.com/https://cdtian.com/publications/https://cdtian.com/publications/"Role-Based Reward Decomposition for Legged Locomotion Reinforcement Learning" (with Panos Trahanias) has been accepted at IEEE/RSJ IROS 2026 — partitioning locomotion rewards by stance and swing roles stabilizes multi-objective learning, validated on a real Unitree Go2 and extended to the G1 biped. I will present it at the conference this September.Thu, 16 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTPublicationhttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.robot.2026.105523https://doi.org/10.1016/j.robot.2026.105523Our extended journal account of the RAICAM doctoral network's research sprints and field demonstrations is now out in *Robotics and Autonomous Systems*, vol. 203.Wed, 15 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTPublicationhttps://cdtian.com/projects/ball-balancing/https://cdtian.com/projects/ball-balancing/"Sim-to-Real Reinforcement Learning for Ball-Balancing Locomotion on Quadruped Robots" (with Hamidreza Raei, Arash Ajoudani, and Panos Trahanias) was presented at the IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics in Genova — a Unitree Go2 walks while keeping a ball balanced on a plate on its back.Fri, 10 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTPublicationhttps://doi.org/10.1109/ICUAS69441.2026.11598625https://doi.org/10.1109/ICUAS69441.2026.11598625"AgiPIX: Bridging Simulation and Reality in Indoor Aerial Inspection" (led by Sasanka Kuruppu Arachchige) was presented at the 2026 International Conference on Unmanned Aircraft Systems.Mon, 15 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTPublicationhttps://cdtian.com/projects/enrich-2025/https://cdtian.com/projects/enrich-2025/Our low-cost air–ground robotic team for nuclear power plant inspection — built in three weeks and field-tested at the EnRicH 2025 trials in AKW Zwentendorf — was presented at IEEE SSRR 2025, with a full open-source release.Wed, 29 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMTPublicationhttps://cdtian.com/projects/hmamp/https://cdtian.com/projects/hmamp/"Manipulate as Human: Learning Task-oriented Manipulation Skills by Adversarial Motion Priors" (with Ziqi Ma and Yue Gao) is out in *Robotica*, vol. 43, no. 6.Wed, 11 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMTPublicationhttps://doi.org/10.1109/ICRA55743.2025.11128680https://doi.org/10.1109/ICRA55743.2025.11128680"Optimal Torque Distribution via Dynamic Adaptation for Quadrupedal Locomotion on Slippery Terrains" (with Despina-Ekaterini Argiropoulos, Michael Maravgakis, Dimitrios Papageorgiou, and Panos Trahanias) was presented at IEEE ICRA 2025.Mon, 19 May 2025 00:00:00 GMTPublicationhttps://cdtian.com/projects/capability-locomotion/https://cdtian.com/projects/capability-locomotion/"Learning Capability to Enhance Locomotion Control and Planning for Legged Robots" (with Yue Gao and Yang Zhang) appeared at the 2024 IEEE International Conference on Real-time Computing and Robotics (RCAR).Mon, 24 Jun 2024 00:00:00 GMTPublicationhttps://cdtian.com/news/https://cdtian.com/news/I am serving as a teaching assistant in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Crete.Sun, 01 Oct 2023 00:00:00 GMTTeachinghttp://raicam.eu/http://raicam.eu/I joined the Computer Vision and Robotics Laboratory at FORTH (Heraklion, Greece) as a PhD fellow of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions RAICAM network, continuing my research on legged robots.Fri, 15 Sep 2023 00:00:00 GMTPositionhttps://cdtian.com/projects/hmamp/https://cdtian.com/projects/hmamp/"Manipulate as Human: Learning Task-oriented Manipulation Skills by Adversarial Motion Priors" (with Ziqi Ma and Yue Gao) was submitted to IEEE ICRA 2024.Sun, 10 Sep 2023 00:00:00 GMTPublicationhttps://cdtian.com/projects/capability-locomotion/https://cdtian.com/projects/capability-locomotion/"Learning Capability to Enhance Locomotion Control and Planning for Legged Robots" (with Yue Gao) was submitted to the IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine.Tue, 05 Sep 2023 00:00:00 GMTPublicationhttps://cdtian.com/projects/capability-locomotion/https://cdtian.com/projects/capability-locomotion/Our paper "CapPlanner: Adaptable to Various Topology and Locomotion Capability for Hexapod Robots" was selected as a finalist for the Best Paper in Biomimetics award at IEEE ROBIO 2022.Thu, 08 Dec 2022 00:00:00 GMTAwardhttps://cdtian.com/projects/olympic-robots/https://cdtian.com/projects/olympic-robots/The skating and skiing robots we built and field-tested at real winter resorts were part of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics torch relay activities.Wed, 02 Feb 2022 00:00:00 GMTProject