Jingao Xu｜徐京傲

Postdoctoral Researcher

Computer Science, CMU

GHC 9120, 5000 Forbes Ave

Pittsburgh, PA, 15213

I am currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Computer Science Department of Carnegie Mellon University, working with Professor Mahadev Satyanarayanan. My current work focuses on advancing Edge Computing within Drone-based systems. Prior to that, I received both my Ph.D. (2022) and B.E. (2017) degrees with highest honors in Software Engineering from the School of Software at Tsinghua University, under the supervision of Prof. Zheng Yang and Prof. Yunhao Liu.

[OPENING] I’m joining the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (EEE) at the University of Hong Kong as a tenure-track Assistant Professor, starting in Spring 2026. I’m actively seeking highly motivated students to join our group at HKU. See Note to Prospective Students.

E-mail: jingaoxu@hku.hk / jingaox@andrew.cmu.edu

Research Interests:

Mobile and Embedded Systems, AI Systems, AIoT
Embodied Navigation, Edge Computing
CV / Full Publications / Google Scholar

Research Highlight

How can cutting-edge CV/AI advances empower running robots, flying drones, and soaring satellites (NOT just excel on datasets or in simulators)? The only way to answer this question is to build effective mobile systems. In the era of Low-Altitude Economy, building system supports to Enhance Drone’s Intelligence and Autonomy is our current focus, that is, “Working Code on Flying Drones Trumps All Hypes” (inspired by Prof. Satya). In pursuit of making code operational and drones airborne, our group think this problem from the following three perspectives:

Algorithm/Model Front: Write Working Code for Flying Drones.
Computing/System Front: Enable Flying Drones to run Working Code.
Software-Hardware Co-Design: Embed Working Code into Flying Drones.

Thanks to these system supports, some of our proposed drone localization solutions and edge-based computing platforms have been adopted by industry partners. My Work at a Glimpse

News

Sep, 2025	Our benchmarking work trying to answer the fundamental question, Is Edge Computing Still Needed for Real-Time AI?, got accepted by ACM/IEEE SEC 2025
Sep, 2025	Extended version of TransformLoc - Aerial Shepherds - got accepted by IEEE TMC
Sep, 2025	Our work EventPro got accepted by ACM SenSys 2026. Propeller can now be served as the entry sensing point for drone
Sep, 2025	Our work E-Cube for drone-based integrated computing and communication got accepted by ACM EuroSys 2026
Jul, 2025	Our work PRE-Mamba on raw-data-level event camera denoising using mamba got accepted by ICCV 2025
Jun, 2025	VISC, which achieves mmWave-based scene flow estimation with vision supervision is accepted by IEEE/RSJ IROS 2025
Apr, 2025	Our work TerraSLAM, on GPS-Denied Global Positioning for Drones, got accepted by ACM MobiSys 2025. Extended version of MobiAir got accepted by IEEE TMC
Feb, 2025	Our work mmE-Loc, on accurate landing for Meituan Delivery Drones, got accepted by ACM SenSys 2025
Jul, 2024	Invited to serve as the Finance Co-Chair of ACM MobiSys 2025. Consider submitting your best works!
Jun, 2024	Extended version of edgeSLAM2 and BioDrone were accepted by IEEE TMC
May, 2024	Our two works RF-Diffusion, on RF-oriented generative AI, and AirTouch, on drone-based real-time computing, got accepted by ACM MobiCom 2024. Each of them received all four badges from Artifact Evaluation
Mar, 2024	Our work MobiAir, on city-level drone-based crowdsourcing, got accepted by ACM MobiSys 2024
Jan, 2024	Our three works on drone-based computing, edgeSLAM2, EventBoost, and TransformLoc, got accepted by IEEE INFOCOM 2024
Dec, 2023	Invited to serve as Poster/Demo Co-Chair and Publication Co-Chair of ACM HotMobile 2024
Dec, 2023	Our work RF-Diffusion got accepted by ACM MobiCom 2024 with shepherding
Aug, 2023	Our work BioDrone got accepted by ACM MobiCom 2023
Jun, 2023	Invited to serve on the TPC of EAI MobiQuitous 2023 and IEEE ICPADS 2023.
Mar, 2023	ACM SIGCOMM China Doctoral Dissertation Award

Representative Publications

Full Publications

2024

Edge Assisted Mobile Visual SLAM

Jingao Xu, Zheng Yang, Yunhao Liu, and Hao Cao

Springer Book, ISBN: 978-981-97-3572-3, 2024

Bib HTML

@book{xu2024edgeslambook,
  title = {Edge Assisted Mobile Visual SLAM},
  author = {Xu, Jingao and Yang, Zheng and Liu, Yunhao and Cao, Hao},
  year = {2024},
  publisher = {Springer Book},
  isbn = {978-981-97-3572-3},
}

2026

ACM EuroSys

E-Cube: Event Enhanced Efficient Video Streaming for Drones

Jingao Xu, Longfei Shangguan, Danyang Li, Yunhao Liu, and Zheng Yang

In Proceedings of the ACM EuroSys, 2026

Bib PDF Slide

@inproceedings{xu2026ecube,
  author = {Xu, Jingao and Shangguan, Longfei and Li, Danyang and Liu, Yunhao and Yang, Zheng},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the ACM EuroSys},
  title = {E-Cube: Event Enhanced Efficient Video Streaming for Drones},
  year = {2026},
}

ACM SenSys

Count Every Rotation and Every Rotation Counts: Exploring Drone Dynamics via Propeller Sensing

Xuecheng Chen*, Jingao Xu*, Wenhua Ding, Haoyang Wang, Xinyu Luo, Ruiyang Duan, Jialong Chen, Xueqian Wang, Yunhao Liu, and Xinlei Chen

In Proceedings of the ACM SenSys, 2026

Bib PDF Slide

@inproceedings{chen2026eventpro,
  author = {Chen, Xuecheng and Xu, Jingao and Ding, Wenhua and Wang, Haoyang and Luo, Xinyu and Duan, Ruiyang and Chen, Jialong and Wang, Xueqian and Liu, Yunhao and Chen, Xinlei},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the ACM SenSys},
  title = {Count Every Rotation and Every Rotation Counts: Exploring Drone Dynamics via Propeller Sensing},
  year = {2026},
}

2025

ACM MobiSys

TerraSLAM: Towards GPS-Denied Localization

Jingao Xu, Mihir Bala, Thomas Eiszler, Xiangliang Chen, Qifei Dong, Aditya Chanana, Padmanabhan Pillai, and Mahadev Satyanarayanan

In Proceedings of the ACM MobiSys, 2025

Bib Talk PDF Code

@inproceedings{xu2025terraslam,
  author = {Xu, Jingao and Bala, Mihir and Eiszler, Thomas and Chen, Xiangliang and Dong, Qifei and Chanana, Aditya and Pillai, Padmanabhan and Satyanarayanan, Mahadev},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the ACM MobiSys},
  title = {TerraSLAM: Towards GPS-Denied Localization},
  year = {2025},
}

2023

ACM MobiCom

Taming Event Cameras with Bio-inpired Architecture and Algorithm: A Case for Drone Obstacle Avoidance

Jingao Xu, Danyang Li, Zheng Yang, Yishujie Zhao, Hao Cao, Yunhao Liu, and Longfei Shangguan

In Proceedings of the ACM MobiCom, 2023

Bib PDF Code

@inproceedings{xu2023biodrone,
  author = {Xu, Jingao and Li, Danyang and Yang, Zheng and Zhao, Yishujie and Cao, Hao and Liu, Yunhao and Shangguan, Longfei},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the ACM MobiCom},
  pages = {977--993},
  title = {Taming Event Cameras with Bio-inpired Architecture and Algorithm: A Case for Drone Obstacle Avoidance},
  year = {2023},
}

2022

USENIX NSDI

SwarmMap: Scaling Up Real-time Collaborative Visual SLAM at the Edge

Jingao Xu, Hao Cao, Zheng Yang, Longfei Shangguan, Jialin Zhang, Xiaowu He, and Yunhao Liu

In Proceedings of the USENIX NSDI, 2022

Bib PDF Code

@inproceedings{xu2022swarmmap,
  author = {Xu, Jingao and Cao, Hao and Yang, Zheng and Shangguan, Longfei and Zhang, Jialin and He, Xiaowu and Liu, Yunhao},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the USENIX NSDI},
  pages = {977--993},
  title = {SwarmMap: Scaling Up Real-time Collaborative Visual SLAM at the Edge},
  year = {2022},
}