Papers
54
Total Citations
2,506
H-Index
25
About
Shehryar Khattak is a leading robotics researcher whose work centers on autonomous exploration, simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM), and resilient navigation for aerial and legged robots operating in extreme, GPS-denied environments. His research has made transformative contributions to subterranean robotics, most notably through his pivotal role in Team CERBERUS, which won the prestigious DARPA Subterranean Challenge finals — a landmark achievement in field robotics that has garnered over 225 citations alone. Khattak has pioneered graph-based path planning strategies specifically tailored to the complex topologies of underground environments, with related papers accumulating over 400 citations combined. His work on uncertainty-aware receding horizon exploration (183 citations) introduced influential probabilistic approaches to autonomous aerial mapping, while his development of keyframe-based thermal-inertial odometry addressed navigation in visually degraded, smoke-filled settings where conventional sensors fail. His contributions to localizability-aware LiDAR registration via X-ICP further demonstrate his commitment to robust real-world localization. With a body of work exceeding 1,500 citations across a decade, Khattak stands as a defining voice in the future of autonomous robotic exploration in the most challenging environments on — and potentially beyond — Earth.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
- 1
- 2CERBERUS in the DARPA Subterranean Challenge225 citations · 2022
- 3Uncertainty-aware receding horizon exploration and mapping using aerial robots183 citations · 2017
- 4Present and Future of SLAM in Extreme Environments: The DARPA SubT Challenge176 citations · 2023
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- 9Keyframe‐based thermal–inertial odometry84 citations · 2019
- 10Autonomous Navigation and Mapping in Underground Mines Using Aerial Robots83 citations · 2019