2002.7-今：中国科学院自动化研究所，现在多模态人工智能系统全国重点实验室。研究员，博士生导师。

1. 服务机器人环境感知（物体检测与分割、小样本检测、可供性、位姿测量等）与杂乱环境下的智能操作
2. 激光/视觉SLAM定位导航等

主持和承担国家863计划课题1项、子课题3项；国家自然科学基金项目3项、面上和重点项目子课题各1项；北京市自然科学基金-小米创新联合基金1项等。

[1]Zhiqiang Cao, Min Tan, et al. Cooperative Hunting by Distributed Mobile Robots Based on Local Interaction. IEEE Transactions on Robotics, 2006, 22(2), 403-407.
[2]Zhiqiang Cao, Chengpeng Wang, et al. LiDAR Place Recognition Based on Range Image and Column-Shift-Invariant Attention. IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Vehicles, 2024, DOI: 10.1109/TIV.2024.3376002.
[3]Zhiqiang Cao, Xuchao Chen, et al. Image Dynamics-based Visual Servoing for Quadrotors Tracking a Target with a Nonlinear Trajectory Observer. IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics: Systems, 2020, 50(1), 376-384.
[4]Zhiqiang Cao, Xilong Liu, et al. A Fast Orientation Estimation Approach of Natural Images. IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics: Systems, 2016, 46(11), 1589-1597.
[5]Yingying Yu, Zhiqiang Cao, et al. A Two-stream CNN with Simultaneous Detection and Segmentation for Robotic Grasping. IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics: Systems, 2022, 52(2), 1167-1181.
[6]Lei Pang, Zhiqiang Cao, et al. A Visual Leader-Following Approach with a T-D-R Framework for Quadruped Robots. IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics: Systems, 2021, 51(4), 2342-2354.
[7]Jierui Liu, Zhiqiang Cao, et al. Category-Level 6D Object Pose Estimation with Structure Encoder and Reasoning Attention. IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology, 2022, 32(10), 6728-6740.
[8]Peiyu Guan, Zhiqiang Cao, et al. Visual Place Recognition via a Multitask Learning Method With Attentive Feature Aggregation. IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems, 2023, 15(3), 1263-1278.
[9]Yingbo Tang, Zhiqiang Cao, et al. Semi-Supervised Few-Shot Object Detection via Adaptive Pseudo Labeling. IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology, 2024
[10]Chengpeng Wang, Zhiqiang Cao, et al. Hierarchical Distribution-based Tightly-Coupled LiDAR Inertial Odometry. IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Vehicles, 2024, 9(1), 1423-1435.
[11]Jierui Liu, Zhiqiang Cao, et al. Bird’s-Eye-View Semantic Segmentation with Two-Stream Compact Depth Transformation and Feature Rectification. IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Vehicles, 2023, 8(11), 4546-4558.
[12]Jierui Liu, Xilong Liu, Zhiqiang Cao, et al. Generalized Feature Learning for Detection of Novel Objects. IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems, 2024, 16(1), 388-395.

2002年，宝钢优秀学生奖；
2004年，多机器人协调、控制与仿生关键技术，北京市科学技术二等奖，第6位；
2013年，仿生机器鱼高效与高机动控制的理论与方法，北京市科学技术一等奖，第6位。

授权发明专利30余项，其中美国专利2项。