Blog

Associate Professor Manabu Tsukada, Assistant Professor Ehsan Javanmardi, and Ph.D. candidate (D3) Huan Meng participated in the IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSC 2025), held in Gold Coast, Australia, in November 2025. ITSC is one of the leading international conferences in the intelligent transportation systems field, bringing together researchers from around the world for discussions on the latest research and technological advances. During the conference, Associate Professor Tsukada delivered a keynote talk titled “Adaptive V2X Collaboration for End-to-End Autonomous Driving” at the DriveX Workshop, presenting recent progress in cooperative autonomous driving technologies. Ph.D. candidate Huan Meng also presented his research, “Patch Exploration-Based Route Planning for Autonomous Vehicles,” whichRead more

From November 11–14, 2025, the ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology (VRST 2025) was held in Montreal, Canada. Vishal Chauhan (D3) and Yu Asabe (D1) from our laboratory, and Anubhav (D3) from the Department of Mathematical Informatics attended the conference. Researchers from many countries presented work on virtual reality, interaction techniques, and simulation platforms, and there were active discussions in both oral and poster sessions. Our team presented the full paper **“A Silent Negotiator? Cross-cultural VR Evaluation of Smart Pole Interaction Units in Dynamic Shared Spaces.”** The study introduces the Smart Pole Interaction Unit (SPIU), an infrastructure-based interface that shows clear “STOP/GO” signals to help pedestrians decide when to crossRead more

Members of the Tsukada Laboratory attended the International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV) 2025, held in Honolulu, Hawai‘i, from October 19th to 23rd, 2025. ICCV is one of the leading international conferences in the field of computer vision and brings together researchers from around the world. Ph.D. student Hao Si presented a poster titled “You Share Beliefs, I Adapt: Progressive Heterogeneous Collaborative Perception.” The study examines the challenge of heterogeneity in collaborative perception for autonomous driving and proposes an approach that enables a vehicle model to adapt its parameters during inference without prior joint training. Project Researcher Yue Yin attended several workshops related to visual localization, including Multi-Modal Localization andRead more

Tsukada Laboratory (T-Lab), The University of Tokyo, is pleased to announce the public release of the URT-Kashiwa Dataset, a novel driving dataset designed to support research on unprotected right turns, one of the most challenging maneuvers for autonomous vehicles. About the Dataset The URT-Kashiwa Dataset (Unprotected Right Turn, Kashiwa Campus) provides high-quality recordings of driving scenarios specifically focused on unprotected right turns—an essential case study for understanding decision-making in urban traffic. These scenarios are widely recognized as among the most difficult for autonomous driving systems to handle, given the need to negotiate with both oncoming vehicles and pedestrians. While unprotected left turns are a major focus in European traffic contexts,Read more

From August 27–29, 2025, Dr. Naren Bao, Shangkai Zhang (D3), and Dr. Alex Orsholits participated in the 3rd Annual IEEE International Conference on Metaverse Computing, Networking, and Applications (MetaCom 2025), held at Sejong University, Seoul, Republic of Korea. Dr. Bao presented “4D Path Planning via Spatiotemporal Voxels in Urban Airspaces.” The work introduces a 4D (space-time) voxel representation aligned with Spatial ID to model dynamic urban airspaces for UAV routing. By combining offline pretraining and online fine-tuning in a reinforcement-learning pipeline, the method plans safe, efficient flight paths amid static structures and dynamic obstacles using PLATEAU city models. Reported results show gains in safety (greater obstacle clearance) and efficiency (shorter,Read more

Members of the Tsukada Laboratory recently participated in the 36th IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium (IV2025), held in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, from June 22nd to 25th, 2025. This prestigious conference brought together leading researchers and practitioners in the field of intelligent vehicles. Representing our laboratory were Professor Tsukada, Professor Javanmardi, and Ph.D. students Yun Li and Yuze Jiang. It was also a pleasure to reconnect with Mikel García, a former visiting Ph.D. student, at the event. Our team made significant contributions to the symposium through two paper presentations and two keynote talks. Ph.D. student Yun Li presented “PrefDrive: Enhancing Autonomous Driving through Preference-Guided Large Language Models,” a novel framework that uses largeRead more

We are pleased to announce that the 5th Summer School on Cooperative Interacting Vehicles (CIV2025) will take place from September 1st to 5th, 2025 in Blonay, Switzerland. This international summer school provides a learning and networking environment for students, early-career researchers, and professionals working on cooperative mobility, autonomous systems, and AI-driven intelligent transportation. Participants will have the opportunity to learn directly from experts in the field and engage in discussions on topics such as cooperative perception, motion planning, human-vehicle interaction, and data-driven methods. The event is organized under the leadership of Prof. Arnaud de La Fortelle. Our laboratory’s Associate Professor Manabu Tsukada is a member of the organizing committee andRead more

We are delighted to share that Vishal Chauhan, a member of our Tsukada Laboratory, and Anubhav from the Department of Mathematical Informatics, participated in the prestigious OzCHI’24 Student Design Challenge (SDC). This renowned event was held at the OzCHI conference in Brisbane, Australia, from November 30 to December 4, 2024. The conference serves as an international hub for Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and cutting-edge research. The SDC centered on the theme Beyond Being Human, exploring how HCI extends beyond human interactions to encompass AI and the natural world. Vishal and Anubhav presented their innovative design solution, Reimagining Smart Poles: A Sustainable Interface for Pedestrian-AV Ecosystems. Their idea, which features sustainable smartRead more

The 2024 Tsukada Lab CRONOS Symposium, funded by JST’s CRONOS program, served as a kickoff event for collaborative discussions on advancing communication platforms that integrate vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2X) systems with large language models (LLMs) and VR simulation technologies. This symposium, part of the project Evolutionary Communication Infrastructure Connecting Diverse Mobile Devices and Humans, aimed to foster dialogue among researchers and practitioners on developing efficient bidirectional interactions between humans and embodied AI. Keynote Presentations Manabu Tsukada (Associate Professor, The University of Tokyo) opened the symposium with a presentation on the development of adaptive communication platforms that connect diverse mobility systems with human-centric applications. Prof. Tsukada highlighted how next-generation communicationRead more

Dr. Manabu Tsukada was invited to speak at the 1st Workshop on Cooperative Intelligence for Embodied AI, co-located with the 18th European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV 2024), in Milan, Italy, on September 30th, 2024. This workshop focused on how cooperative intelligence can enhance multi-agent systems in autonomous driving and robotics. Dr. Tsukada’s presentation, titled “Cooperative Autonomous Mobility through Open Standards and Real-World Experiments,” explored how Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) communication and Roadside Perception Units (RSPUs) are transforming autonomous mobility. By integrating open standards, his talk demonstrated how cooperative perception and maneuver coordination can significantly improve the safety and efficiency of autonomous vehicles. The workshop provided a platform for discussing the challengesRead more

We are pleased to announce that Yun Li, a second-year doctoral student, and Yuze Jiang, a first-year doctoral student, represented Tsukada Lab at the IEEE ITSC 2024 conference, held in Edmonton, Canada, from September 24 to 27, 2024. The 27th IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems (IEEE ITSC 2024) serves as the flagship event of the IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Society (ITSS), gathering researchers from around the globe to share advancements in the field of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). Yun Li’s Presentation: Yun Li presented a paper titled “Large Language Models for Human-like Autonomous Driving Decision Making: A Survey.” This research emphasizes the potential of Large Language Models (LLMs)Read more

The ITSC2024 workshop, titled “Vision Language Model Based Human-Centered Autonomous Driving”, was organized by Tsukada lab’s Prof. Naren and Prof. Javanmardi, alongside Prof. Alexander Carballo (Gifu University), and Prof. Cristina Johannes (Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria). The workshop explored the integration of vision language models (VLMs) into autonomous driving, with a focus on human factors in decision-making, safety, and interaction. The event featured five presentations, each covering unique aspects of human-centered autonomous driving technology. Summary of Presentations: Automated Vehicle Driver Monitoring Dataset from Real-World Scenarios Integrating Naturalistic Insights in Objective Multi-Vehicle Safety Framework Presenter: Enrico Del Re, Research Assistant, Johannes Kepler University Linz Enrico discussed the use of real-world dataRead more

We are excited to share that Vishal Chauhan, a Doctoral student (D1), recently presented his research at the prestigious Auto-UI 2024 conference. The presentation, titled “Transforming Pedestrian and Autonomous Vehicles Interactions in Shared Spaces: A Think-Tank Study on Exploring Human-Centric Designs,” explored innovative solutions for enhancing pedestrian and autonomous vehicle (AV) interactions using Smart Pole Interaction Units (SPIU) and external human-machine interfaces (eHMIs). The study involved 25 participants who brainstormed design solutions to improve the effectiveness, simplicity, visibility, and clarity of pedestrian-AV interactions. Key findings highlighted the preference for real-time interaction through SPIUs over eHMIs on AVs in various scenarios. However, the combined use of both SPIUs and eHMIs proved crucial for building trust in autonomous decision-making.Read more

Our lab members participated in the ITS World Congress 2024, held from September 16 to 20 at the Dubai World Trade Center. This conference gathers experts from around the world to discuss advancements in intelligent transport systems (ITS). We moderated and presented the session “SIS 38: Rationale and Validation of Cooperative Perception Services for Connected & Automated Vehicles.” The session focused on the limitations of Level 3 and Level 4 automated vehicles, which rely on onboard sensors to detect surroundings. These vehicles struggle to detect objects in blind spots or beyond sensor range. To enhance safety, cooperative perception services using V2X communication were discussed. This technology allows sharing information fromRead more

We are delighted to announce that Ms. Chi Weiqi, a D1 student from our laboratory, received the IEEE VTS Tokyo/Japan Chapter Young Researcher’s Encouragement Award at the 2024 IEEE 99th Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC2024-Spring) in Singapore. This conference, held from June 24-27, is a major event in wireless, mobile, and vehicular technology, bringing together experts from academia, industry, and government to share the latest advancements. Ms. Chi presented her paper titled “V2I Blockage Modeling and Performance Evaluation for Autonomous Driving.” Her research focuses on the challenges in vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication, particularly in the context of millimeter-wave (mmWave) technology. By using an RSU-assisted system, her study addresses blockages in multi-lane scenariosRead more

We are pleased to report on our participation in the 35th IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium (IEEE IV 2024), held at Jeju Shinhwa World, Jeju Island, Korea, from June 2-5, 2024. This prestigious conference, sponsored by the IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Society (ITSS), brought together researchers, engineers, practitioners, and students from various sectors to discuss the latest advancements in intelligent vehicles and vehicle-infrastructure cooperation. Our laboratory was represented by Prof. Manabu Tsukada and Dr. Tao Ye presented his paper titled “Zero-Knowledge Proof of Distinct Identity: A Standard-Compatible Sybil-Resistant Pseudonym Extension for C-ITS.” The paper addresses the challenge of Sybil attacks in Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems (C-ITS) by proposing a novel protocolRead more

Kengo Suzuki (M2) recently participated in the 2nd Workshop on Next-generation Open and Programmable Radio Access Networks (NG-OPERA), held alongside the IEEE INFOCOM 2024 conference in Vancouver, Canada. This workshop focused on the transformation of radio access networks (RAN) as we move towards 5G-Advanced and 6G technologies. Topics like the Open RAN movement, open-source software solutions, and AI’s role in network management were highlighted. Kengo presented his research paper titled “Toward B5G/6G Connected Autonomous Vehicles: O-RAN-Driven Millimeter-Wave Beam Management and Handover Management.” His work proposed a novel way to use O-RAN architecture to improve communication for autonomous vehicles, especially in challenging road scenarios. Notably, his presentation won the Best PaperRead more

Associate Professor Manabu Tsukada participated in the 6th International Workshop on Pervasive Computing for Vehicular Systems (PerVehicle 2024) held in Biarritz, France at 15th March 2024. This conference served as a platform for researchers and practitioners to discuss the evolving landscape of intelligent vehicular systems and the role of pervasive computing technologies in shaping their future. One of the highlights of the conference was Professor Tsukada’s presentation titled “V2X and Beyond: Integrating Roadside Units for Next-Level Cooperative Automated Driving.” The presentation explored the transformative potential of integrating Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) communication and Roadside Perception Units (RSPUs) in enhancing autonomous driving capabilities. Through rigorous field tests and simulation experiments, Professor Tsukada showcasedRead more

From December 14th to 15th, 2023, at the National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology in Kaohsiung City, Taiwan, Yuze Jiang, an M2 student from our laboratory, was awarded the Best Paper Award (Silver) at the ACM International Conference on Intelligent Computing and its Emerging Applications (ICEA 2023), despite it being his first participation in an international conference. The award-winning paper proposed a method of using LiDAR-equipped roadside units and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) communication to accurately estimate the position of connected vehicles and assist them when their self-localization is insufficient. The results of the simulation indicated that this method surpasses the traditional Normal Distributions Transform (NDT) scan matching-based approach in termsRead more

Team TLAB, consisting of Chikara Matsuzawa (1st year master’s student) and Kengo Suzuki (1st year master’s student), won the 2nd place excellence award at the Automated AI Challenge 2023 (Integration) held on Sunday, November 12, 2023, at the University of Tokyo Kashiwa Campus. Six student teams and 10 adult teams participated in the finals, with Team TLAB coming in first place among students and second place overall, a great accomplishment following their third-place finish in last year’s Automated Driving AI Challenge 2022. In the Automated AI Challenge, students competed to complete challenges using Autoware, an open-source automated driving operating system. In the qualifying round, contestants drove self-driving cars in aRead more