Robotics is a genuine symbiosis of science and engineering. I feel fortunate to work on both the yin and yang of robotics: from proving theorems on papers to build hardware & code software on product-grade robots.
Dr. Hai-Nguyen Nguyen, also known by his initials HANN, is a Lecturer in Robotics and Mechatronics at RMIT Vietnam. He holds a Ph.D. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Seoul National University, Korea. His research focuses on robotics, with a particular emphasis on drone technologies.
Dr. Nguyen’s experience spans both research-focus institutions and deep-tech startups. He has held various positions at major research institutes, including Imperial College London (UK), LAAS-CNRS (France), and Seoul National University (Korea). He has also ventured beyond academia, spending a year working at a robotics startup in California, U.S. (remotely due to the COVID-19).
His work has been published in leading robotics venues, including CORE A/A* conferences (IROS, ICRA) and Scimago Q1 journals (RAL, TRO, TMech, Automatica). Actively engaged in the robotics community, he has peer-reviewed and edited over 100 robotics papers. Since 2023, he has served as an Associate Editor for ICRA, a CORE A* conference in robotics.
Co-advisor: Dr. Anh Nguyen (Liverpool)
Lecturer at RMIT, Saigon South Campus, Vietnam.
Associate Editor for ICRA 2025.
Sequential Trajectory Optimization for Externally-Actuated Modular Manipulators with Joint Locking, J. Choe, J. Lee, H. Yang, H. Nguyen†, and D. J. Lee† (†co-corresponding).
Undergraduate Course | Spring 2025 | RMIT
Covers topics in robot mechanics, control, and perception, with an emphasis on first-principle approaches. Includes hands-on projects using real robotic systems.
Undergraduate Course | Summer 2025 | RMIT
Covers fundamentals of systems engineering. Focuses on identifying requirements, selecting methods, and testing solutions for natural or manmade systems.
J. Choe, J. Lee, H. Yang, H. Nguyen†, and D. J. Lee† (†co-corresponding)
IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2024
A novel trajectory planning method for externally-actuated modular manipulators (EAMMs), consisting of multiple rotor-actuated links with joints that can be either locked or unlocked.
B. Stephens*, H. Nguyen*, S. Hamaza and M. Kovac (*co-first)
IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics (TMech), 2023
162 flight experiments shows the proposed framework's ability to autonomously place sensors within 10cm of the target with a success rate of 93.8% and 95% confidence interval of (89%, 97%), thus confirming the robustness of the proposed approach.
H. Nguyen, S. Park, J. Park and D. J. Lee
IEEE Transactions on Robotics (TRO), 2018
Development of a novel aerial robotic platform for physical interactions, which consists of a rigid frame and multiple quadrotors that are connected to the frame via passive spherical joints and act as distributed rotating thrust generators to collectively propel the frame by adjusting their attitude and thrust force.