Ethan Yifu Tao 陶奕甫

I am an Assistant Professor at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) since July 2026. I was a DPhil student and Postdoctoral Researcher in the Dynamic Robot System Group (DRS) of the Oxford Robotics Institute (ORI), University of Oxford, supervised by Prof. Maurice Fallon. Prior to my DPhil, I finished my undergraduate study in Engineering Science also at the University of Oxford with a MEng degree at 2020 with my master’s thesis supervised by Prof. Philip Torr. I was a visitor at ETH working with Prof. Stefan Leutenegger in 2025.

I am generally interested in Robot Perception, Navigation and Manipulation.

Spatial Perception (3D Reconstruction and SLAM), Temporal Modelling (Dynamics SLAM and Long-term Mapping), Semantic Scene Understanding and Physical Perception
Real2Sim2Real: Building Simulation from Perception to scale up Robot Learning
Sensor Fusion across Vision, Depth, and Tactile Modalities
Probabilistic Methods and Uncertainty Quantification for Active Robot Perception

I am hiring PhD students and visiting students. If you are interested in working with me, please feel free drop me an email!

News

Jul 06, 2026	I joined HK PolyU as an Assistant Professor.
Mar 12, 2026	I am serving as an Associate Editor for IROS 2026.
Sep 09, 2025	SiLVR has been accepted by the IEEE Transactions on Robotics (T-RO).
Jul 28, 2025	I will be visiting ETH for 3 months working with Prof. Stefan Leutenegger! This is partially supported by the UK-RAS Network’s Travel Grant.
May 12, 2025	Oxford Spires Dataset aceepted to IJRR. This work connects SLAM research with NeRF/3DGS is released. TLS ground truth 3D map, colour cameras, lidar, all in one.

Publications

SiLVR: Scalable Lidar-Visual Radiance Field Reconstruction with Uncertainty Quantification

Yifu Tao, and Maurice Fallon

IEEE Transactions on Robotics (T-RO), 2025

arXiv Bib Youtube Website

@article{tao2025silvr,
  title = {{SiLVR}: Scalable Lidar-Visual Radiance Field Reconstruction with Uncertainty Quantification},
  author = {Tao, Yifu and Fallon, Maurice},
  year = {2025},
  journal = {IEEE Transactions on Robotics (T-RO)},
}

The Oxford Spires Dataset: Benchmarking Large-Scale LiDAR-Visual Localisation, Reconstruction and Radiance Field Methods

Yifu Tao, Miguel Ángel Muñoz-Bañón , Lintong Zhang , Jiahao Wang , Lanke Frank Tarimo Fu , and Maurice Fallon

International Journal of Robotics Research (IJRR), 2025

arXiv Bib Youtube bilibili Website

@article{tao2025spires,
  title = {The {Oxford Spires} Dataset: Benchmarking Large-Scale {LiDAR}-Visual Localisation, Reconstruction and Radiance Field Methods},
  author = {Tao, Yifu and Mu{\~n}oz-Ba{\~n}{\'o}n, Miguel {\'A}ngel and Zhang, Lintong and Wang, Jiahao and Fu, Lanke Frank Tarimo and Fallon, Maurice},
  year = {2025},
  journal = {International Journal of Robotics Research (IJRR)},
}

Visual Localization in 3D Maps: Comparing Point Cloud, Mesh, and NeRF Representations

Lintong Zhang , Yifu Tao, Jiarong Lin , Fu Zhang , and Maurice Fallon

arXiv preprint, 2024

arXiv Bib Youtube

@article{zhang2024renderloc,
  title = {Visual Localization in {3D} Maps: Comparing Point Cloud, Mesh, and {NeRF} Representations},
  author = {Zhang, Lintong and Tao, Yifu and Lin, Jiarong and Zhang, Fu and Fallon, Maurice},
  year = {2024},
  journal = {arXiv preprint},
}

SiLVR: Scalable Lidar-Visual Reconstruction with Neural Radiance Fields for Robotic Inspection

Yifu Tao, Yash Bhalgat , Lanke Frank Tarimo Fu , Matias Mattamala , Nived Chebrolu , and Maurice Fallon

In IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) , 2024

arXiv Bib Youtube bilibili Website

@inproceedings{tao2024silvr,
  title = {SiLVR: Scalable Lidar-Visual Reconstruction with Neural Radiance Fields for Robotic Inspection},
  author = {Tao, Yifu and Bhalgat, Yash and Fu, Lanke Frank Tarimo and Mattamala, Matias and Chebrolu, Nived and Fallon, Maurice},
  booktitle = {IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)},
  year = {2024},
}

Osprey: Multi-Session Autonomous Aerial Mapping with LiDAR-based SLAM and Next Best View Planning

Rowan Border , Nived Chebrolu , Yifu Tao, Jonathan D. Gammell , and Maurice Fallon

IEEE Transactions on Field Robotics, 2024

arXiv Bib Youtube

@article{border2024osprey,
  title = {Osprey: Multi-Session Autonomous Aerial Mapping with LiDAR-based SLAM and Next Best View Planning},
  author = {Border, Rowan and Chebrolu, Nived and Tao, Yifu and Gammell, Jonathan D. and Fallon, Maurice},
  year = {2024},
  journal = {{IEEE} Transactions on Field Robotics},
}

3D Lidar Reconstruction with Probabilistic Depth Completion for Robotic Navigation

Yifu Tao, Marija Popović , Yiduo Wang , Sundara Tejaswi Digumarti , Nived Chebrolu , and Maurice Fallon

In IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) , 2022

arXiv Bib Youtube bilibili

@inproceedings{tao2022pdc,
  title = {3D Lidar Reconstruction with Probabilistic Depth Completion for Robotic Navigation},
  author = {Tao, Yifu and Popovi{\'c}, Marija and Wang, Yiduo and Digumarti, Sundara Tejaswi and Chebrolu, Nived and Fallon, Maurice},
  booktitle = {IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)},
  pages = {5339--5346},
  year = {2022},
  organization = {IEEE},
}