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Xiao Zhang

Office: CIS 212  |  Lab: CIS 108 & ELB 2387
4901 Evergreen Rd, Dearborn, MI 48128

I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer and Information Science at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, where I lead the TAI (Trustworthy AI-driven IoT) Lab and serve as the advisor of the student club ICC (Immersive Computing Club). Before joining UM-Dearborn, I was a Postdoctoral Associate at Duke University. I obtained my Ph.D. degree in the Computer Science and Engineering at Michigan State University, my M.S. degree at Northwestern Polytechnical University and B.E. degree with honor at Taiyuan University of Technology. I am looking for highly self-motivated students (Ph.D., D.Eng., master, undergraduate, visiting, intern, and high school) to join my group. If you are passionate about related research topics, please email me with your CV, transcripts, and several sentences about your research interests.

My current research interests are mobile computing, AIoT, Cyber Physical Systems, AI-assisted sensing/localization, and HCI. My previous work focused on exploring spatial-temporal diversities in Optical Wireless Communication (OWC) for its improved communication performance and enabled sensing/localization. My vision is that light can provide the secure and location-aware communication for Internet-of-Things and human-centered mobile computing. With explored OWC's spatial-temporal diversities and machine learning, we can use light as promising medium for next-generation wireless networks with broad applications (e.g., LiFi, V2X networks, underwater navigation, digital health, smart city, smart classroom, smart manufacturing, HCI, AR/VR, and digital twins).

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Research

* denotes the student under supervision at the time of submission and ^ denotes the co-primary authors.

Conference Papers

  1. Dissecting Privacy-Exposing Identifiers in 5G/4G Networks
    Munshi Saifuzzaman, Ke Xie, Tian Xie, Xiao Zhang, and Xinyu Lei
    DSC 2025 | paper

  2. ViKey: Secure Door Access Control Using Passive Visible Light Tags
    Jaskirat Sudan*^, Fatima Qasem*^, Hasky E Fynn*^, Fatima Mohammed*, Ashwin Sarvadey*, Tian Xie, Ang Li, and Xiao Zhang
    MASS 2025 | paper

  3. PlaCoB: Collaborative Beamforming for Long Range Platoon-to-Platoon Communication
    Griffin Klevering, Kanishka P Wijewardena, Xiao Zhang, and Li Xiao
    MASS 2025 | paper

  4. VIOSem: Visual-Inertial Odometry via Semantic Communication-enhanced Modulation Design
    Kanishka P Wijewardena, Griffin Klevering, Xiao Zhang, and Li Xiao
    MASS 2025 | paper

  5. HoloCube: 3D Opitcal IoT Connections via Software Defined Pepper's Ghost
    Xiao Zhang, Li Xiao, and Matt W. Mutka
    ICNP 2024 | paper

  6. WavePurifier: Purifying Audio Adversarial Examples via Hierarchical Diffusion Models
    Hanqing Guo, Guangjing Wang, Bocheng Chen, Yuanda Wang, Xiao Zhang, Xun Chen, Qiben Yan, Li Xiao
    MobiCom 2024 | paper

  7. RadCloud: Real-Time High-Resolution Point Cloud Generation Using Low-Cost Radars for Aerial and Ground Vehicles
    David Hunt, Shaocheng Luo, Amir Khazraei, Xiao Zhang, Spencer Hallyburton, Tingjun Chen, Miroslav Pajic
    ICRA 2024 | paper

  8. RoFin: 3D Hand Pose Reconstructing via 2D Rolling Fingertips
    Xiao Zhang, Griffin Klevering, Juexing Wang, Li Xiao, and Tianxing Li
    MobiSys 2023 | paper

  9. PATCH: A Plug-in Framework Of Non-blocking Inference For Distributed Multimodal System
    Juexing Wang, Guangjing Wang, Xiao Zhang, Li Liu, Huacheng Zeng, Li Xiao, Zhichao Cao, Lin Gu, and Tianxing Li
    Ubicomp 2023 | paper

  10. Boosting Optical Camera Communication via 2D Rolling Blocks
    Xiao Zhang, Griffin Klevering, James Mariani, Li Xiao, and Matt Mutka
    IWQoS 2023 | paper

  11. PoseFly: On-site Pose Parsing of Swarming Drones via 4-in-1 Optical Camera Communication
    Xiao Zhang, Griffin Klevering, and Li Xiao
    WoWMoM 2023 | paper

  12. U-Star: An Underwater Navigation System based on Passive 3D Optical Identification Tags
    Xiao Zhang, Hanqing Guo, James Mariani, and Li Xiao
    MobiCom 2022 | paper

  13. LiFOD: Lighting Extra Data via Fine-grained OWC Dimming
    Xiao Zhang, James Mariani, Li Xiao, and Matt Mutka
    SECON 2022 | paper

  14. Effective Subcarrier Pairing for Hybrid Delivery in Relay Networks
    Xiao Zhang, Li Xiao
    MASS 2020 | paper

  15. k-Labelsets for Multimedia Classification with Global and Local Label Correlation
    Yan Yan, Shining Li, Xiao Zhang, et.al
    MMM 2018 | paper

  16. Directional Monitoring of Multiple Moving Targets by Multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
    Yan Pan, Shining Li, Xiao Zhang, et.al
    GLOBECOM 2017 | paper

  17. Multi-label Learning with Label-Specific Feature Selection
    Yan Yan, Shining Li, Zhe Yang, Xiao Zhang, et.al
    ICONIP 2017 | paper

Journal Papers

  1. Uncovering Risks of Data-Free Feature Vector Inversion Attacks Against Vector Databases
    Shengyang Qin, Xinyu Lei, Nankun Mu, Hongyu Huang, Tian Xie, and Xiao Zhang
    IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing 2025 | paper

  2. Exploiting Fine-grained Dimming with Improved LiFi Throughput
    Xiao Zhang, James Mariani, Li Xiao, and Matt W. Mutka
    ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks 2024 | paper

  3. The Security in Optical Wireless Communication: A Survey
    Xiao Zhang, Griffin Klevering, Xinyu Lei, Yiwen Hu, Li Xiao, and Guan-Hua Tu
    ACM Computing Surveys 2023 | paper

  4. Handling Data Heterogeneity for IoT Devices in Federated Learning: A Knowledge Fusion Approach
    Xu Zhou, Xinyu Lei, Cong Yang, Yichun Shi, Xiao Zhang, and Jingwen Shi
    IEEE Internet of Things Journal 2023 | paper

  5. Survey for Soil Sensing with IOT and Traditional System
    Juexing Wang, Xiao Zhang, Li Xiao, and Tianxing Li
    MDPI Network 2023 | paper

Workshop/Poster/Demo Papers

  1. A Passive Optical Tagging Approach for Secure and Revocable Entry Systems
    Hasky E Fynn*, Jaskirat Suda*, Fatima Qasem*, Fatima Mohammed*, and Xiao Zhang
    MASS Demo 2025 | paper

  2. Holographic Optical Tag enabled Omindirectional IoT Connection
    Xiao Zhang, Li Xiao, and Matt W. Mutka
    SIGCOMM Poster 2024 | paper

  3. Integrated On-site Localization and Optical Camera Communication for Drones
    Xiao Zhang, Griffin Klevering, Kanishka Wijewardena, and Li Xiao
    WoWMoM Demo 2023 | paper

  4. Exploring Rolling Shutter Effect for Motion Tracking with Objective Identification
    Xiao Zhang, Griffin Klevering, Li Xiao
    SenSys Poster 2022 | paper

  5. Lighting Extra Data via OWC Dimming
    Xiao Zhang, Li Xiao
    CoNEXT Workshop 2020 | paper

  6. RainbowRow: Fast Optical Camera Communication
    Xiao Zhang, Li Xiao
    ICNP Workshop 2020 | paper

  7. Effective Subcarrier Pairing Scheme in mmWave-based Relay System
    Xiao Zhang, Li Xiao
    mmWaveRCN Poster 2019 | paper

Teaching

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