About Me
I’m the co-founder and CEO of a robotics startup.
Previously, I was a research scientist at Boston Dynamics AI Institute (RAI) working on whole-body dexterous mobile manipulation, i.e., teaching a robot dog to lift, roll, and stack car tires:)
Before that, I was a Robotics Ph.D. student at Carnegie Mellon University advised by Ji Zhang and Howie Choset.
My research focuses on autonomy in large-scale, dynamic environments. I led the autonomy team for CMU’s entry in the DARPA Subterranean Challenge, developing algorithms that enabled coordinated teams of wheeled, legged, and aerial robots to operate deep underground - without GPS, under severe communication constraints, and in highly unstructured, hazardous environments. These robots autonomously explored kilometer-scale tunnels, caves, and subway networks while searching for and identifying critical objects in real time. Our team won 1st place, 2nd place, and the “Most Sectors Explored Award” in the multi-year challenge.
My work has been published in top conferences and journals, including Science Robotics. It has also received multiple best paper awards, including the Best Student Paper Award at IROS and both the Best Paper Award and Best System Paper Award at RSS—the first and only time a single paper received both awards.
News
- Oct 2025: Founded a robotics startup.
- Jan 2024: Started working at Boston Dynamics AI Institute on whole-body dexterous mobile manipulation.
- Jul 2023: Paper on autonomous exploration published on Science Robotics.
- Oct 2022: Paper on route planning won the Best Student Paper Award of IROS 2022.
- Sep 2021: Our multi-robot exploration algorithm led to winning the Most Sectors Explored Award in the SubT Final Circuit.
- Sep 2021: Awarded the CMU Presidential Fellowship.
- Jul 2021: Paper on autonomous exploration won the Best Paper Award and Best Systems Paper Award of Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS) 2021. The first time that one paper won both awards in the history of RSS!
- Jan 2020: Paper on coverage path planning accepted to ICRA 2020.
- Jan 2019: Paper on crowd navigation accepted to ICRA 2019.
Selected Works
TARE: A Hierarchical Framework for Efficiently ExploringComplex 3D Environments
Chao Cao, Hongbiao Zhu, Howie Choset, Ji Zhang
Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS), 2021
website | pdf
Exploring the Most Sectors at the DARPA Subterranean Challenge Finals
Chao Cao, Lucas Nogueira, Hongbiao Zhu, …, Sebastian Scherer
Field Robotics, 2023
pdf
Hierarchical Coverage Path Planning in Complex 3D Environments
Chao Cao, Ji Zhang, Matt Travers, Howie Choset
IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2020
pdf