Ethan Yifu Tao 陶奕甫

I am an incoming Assistant Professor at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) starting in July 2026. Currently, I am a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Dynamic Robot System Group (DRS) of the Oxford Robotics Institute (ORI), University of Oxford, supervised by Prof. Maurice Fallon. I completed my DPhil thesis in 2025, conducted also in DRS. 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. Specifically, I am interested in:

Spatial Perception (3D Reconstruction and SLAM), Temporal Modelling (Dynamics and Environmental Changes), Semantic 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 Robot Perception

If you are interested in working with me, please drop me an email!

News

May 08, 2026	I am joining HK PolyU as an Assistant Professor in July 2026.
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},
}