Weiru Liu

Bristol Robotics Laboratory, University of Bristol

Papers

Total Citations

H-Index

About

Weiru Liu is a leading researcher in robotic manipulation and tactile sensing, whose work bridges the gap between physical interaction and intelligent perception. Her key research areas include multimodal sensing, tactile intelligence, and haptic-guided systems for surgical applications. Liu made a major contribution with the design of the **ViTacTip sensor**, a compact, transparent-skin device that enables cross-modality interpretation using GAN-based methods, allowing robots to simultaneously capture visual and tactile data for more dexterous manipulation. Her work on **Graph Neural Networks for interpretable tactile sensing** (9 citations) advanced fine-grained object perception beyond traditional CNNs, enabling robots to better understand unstructured environments. In the medical domain, Liu developed **TIMS**, a Tactile Internet-based micromanipulation system with haptic guidance for surgical training (7 citations), addressing the precision limitations of human hands in microsurgery. Her papers have garnered early recognition, with multiple works receiving citations within their first years of publication. Liu’s innovations in sensor design and interpretable AI are paving the way for more capable, safe, and intuitive robotic systems in both industrial and clinical settings.