Brief Bio (Wen-Zhang Liu, 柳文章)

Presently, I serve as a research scientist at the School of Artificial Intelligence, Anhui University. Prior to this role, I successfully completed my Ph.D. research at the School of Automation, Southeast University. During that period, I also engaged in an internship at Peng Cheng Laboratory. My research interests include deep reinforcement learning, multi-agent reinforcement learning, transfer learning, and robot learning, etc. My research goal is to develop versatile agents endowed with general intelligence.

🔥 News

• 2025.01.01:  🎉🎉 Happy new year! The XuanCe repository has got 700+ stars, and been downloaded 12k+ times.

• 2024.04.01:  🎉🎉 We have created WeChat official account for XuanCe, named “玄策 RLlib”. Welcome to follow it!

• 2023.12.25:  🎉🎉 Merry Christmas! The paper of XuanCe is online: https://arxiv.org/abs/2312.16248.

• 2023.05.22:  🎉🎉 We have released XuanCe: https://github.com/agi-brain/xuance on GitHub, an open-source deep reinforcement learning library. Welcome to star and use!

🧑‍🏫 Courses

• Optimization Methods
  • Textbook: Convex Optimization by Stephen Boyd and Lieven Vandenberghe, Stanford University.
  • Code: https://github.com/wenzhangliu/ConvexOptimizationCourse.
• Embedded System, and the experiments.
  • Information about the course: https://github.com/wenzhangliu/EmbediedSystemsCourse

📃 Publications

• Wenzhang Liu, Lianjun Jin, Lu Ren, Chaoxu Mu, Changyin Sun: Reducing action space for deep reinforcement learning via causal effect estimation. arXiv:2501.14543 (2025) [Paper] [BibTex] [Code]

• Xingyue Liang, Qiaoyun Wu, Wenzhang Liu, Yun Zhou, Chunyu Tan, Hongfu Yin, Changyin Sun: Intrinsic plasticity coding improved spiking actor network for reinforcement learning. Neural Networks. 184, 107054. (2025) [Paper] [BibTex]

• Baolin Shu, Wanyi Yao, Jianhua Lu, Wenzhang Liu: Learning to control inverted pendulum on surface with free angles through policy distillation. Chinese Automation Congress (CAC) 2024: 2750-2755 [Paper] [BibTex]

• Xiang Cao, Jing Peng, Wenzhang Liu, Lu Ren, Changyin Sun: AUV collision avoidance strategy based on fuzzy reinforcement learning. IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Vehicles. (2024) [Paper] [BibTex]

• Changyin Sun, Chaoxu Mu, Wenzhang Liu, Xiao Wang: Embodied cognitive intelligence framework of unmanned autonomous systems. Science & Technology Review. 42(12): 157-166 (2024) [Paper] [BibTex]

• Kun Jiang, Wenzhang Liu, Yuanda Wang, Lu Dong, Changyin Sun: Discovering latent variables for the tasks with confounders in multi-agent reinforcement learning. IEEE CAA J. Autom. Sinica. 11(7): 1591-1604 (2024) [Paper] [BibTex]

• Xiang Cao, Wenzhang Liu, Lu Ren: Underwater target capture based on heterogeneous unmanned system collaboration. IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Vehicles (2024) [Paper] [BibTex]

• Wenzhang Liu, Wenzhe Cai, Kun Jiang, Guangran Cheng, Yuanda Wang, Jiawei Wang, Jingyu Cao, Lele Xu, Chaoxu Mu, Changyin Sun: XuanCe: A comprehensive and unified deep reinforcement learning library. arXiv:2312.16248 (2023) [Paper] [BibTex] [Code]

• Kun Jiang, Wenzhang Liu, Yuanda Wang, Lu Dong, Changyin Sun: Credit assignment in heterogeneous multi-agent reinforcement learning for fully cooperative tasks. Appl. Intell. 53(23): 29205-29222 (2023) [Paper] [BibTex]

• Yuewen Sun, Wenzhang Liu, Changyin Sun. Causality in reinforcement learning control: The state of the art and prospects. Acta Automatica Sinica. 49(3): 661−677 (2023) doi: 10.16383/j.aas.c220823 [Paper] [BibTex]

• Yuanda Wang, Wenzhang Liu, Jian Liu, Changyin Sun: Cooperative USV–UAV marine search and rescue with visual navigation and reinforcement learning-based control. ISA transactions. 137: 222-235 (2023) [Paper] [BibTex]

• Wenzhang Liu, Lu Dong, Dan Niu, Changyin Sun: Efficient exploration for multi-agent reinforcement learning via transferable successor features. IEEE CAA J. Autom. Sinica 9(9): 1673-1686 (2022) [Paper] [BibTex] [Code] [Videos]

• Wenzhang Liu, Lu Dong, Jian Liu, Changyin Sun: Knowledge transfer in multi-agent reinforcement learning with incremental number of agents. Journal of systems engineering and electronics. 33(2): 447-460 (2022) [Paper] [BibTex] [Code]

• Changyin Sun, Wenzhang Liu, Lu Dong: Reinforcement learning with task decomposition for cooperative multiagent systems. IEEE Trans. Neural Networks Learn. Syst. 32(5): 2054-2065 (2021) [Paper] [BibTex]

• Yuewen Sun, Xin Yuan, Wenzhang Liu, Changyin Sun: Model-based reinforcement learning via proximal policy optimization. Chinese Automation Congress (CAC) 2019: 4736-4740 [Paper] [BibTex]

• Wenzhang Liu, Haiqin Yang, Yuewen Sun, Changyin Sun: A broad neural network structure for class incremental learning. Advances in Neural Networks–ISNN 2018: 15th International Symposium on Neural Networks: 229-238 [Paper] [BibTex]

🏅 Honors and Awards

• 2022.08, Kun Jiang, Jingyu Cao, Wenzhang Liu and Lu Dong. The 2022 RoboMaster Sim2Real Challenge Third Prize, 2022 IEEE Conference on Games. (Organized by IEEE Computational Intelligence Society)

🎓 Educations

• 2016.08 - 2021.12, Doctor, School of Automation, Southeast University, Nanjing, P.R.China.

• 2012.08 - 2016.06, Bachelor, Department of Control Science and Engineering, Jilin University, Changchun, P.R.China.

🎙️ Invited Talks

• 2023.11.11, 从深度强化学习到多智能体强化学习：算法、结构、机遇和挑战, 第十七届吉林省科协青年科学家论坛——AI创新与发展，（会议主办方：吉林省科学技术协会）.

• 2018.10.18, A broad neural network structure for class incremental learning, 第二十届海峡两岸信息技术研讨会（CSIT2018），（会议主办方：东南大学）.

💻 Internships

• 2021.10 - 2022.05, Peng Cheng Laboratory, Shenzhen, China.

• 2017.12 - 2018.03, Department of Computer Science, Hang Seng University of Hong Kong, China.

🇺🇳 Research Group

Leadership

• Changyin Sun, professor, Anhui University.

Collaborators

• Lu Ren, associate professor, School of Artificial Intelligence, Anhui University.

Graduate Students

2024: Kunpeng Liu, Xiaoyang Quan, Yifan Tang, Duojie Xiang.

2023: Wanyi Yao, Jianhua Lu.

2022: Lianjun Jin, Keke Yang, Zhuoran Shi, Baolin Shu, Haoyu Feng, Zelong Fang, Chen Wang, Yanan Ke.

Undergraduate Students

Minghui Lu, Zhen Wang, Wentao Wei, et al.

📬 Contact

I’m reachable via email at wzliu at ahu dot edu dot cn.

My research office: Room D205, Building H, Materials Science Building (材料科学大楼H座D205室).

Address: No.111 Jiulong Road, Hefei, Anhui, China (230601) (安徽省合肥市经济技术开发区九龙路111号，邮编:230601).