I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer and Information Science at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, where I lead the Trustworthy AI-boosted IoT Lab (TAI Lab). 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., 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, HCI, and AR/VR).
05/2025, awarded OE Creation grant, thanks UM-Dearborn and OE committee!
01/2025, invited to be a TPC member of IEEE INFOCOM DeepWireless 2025.
10/2024, invited to be a TPC member of IEEE ICNC 2025.
09/2024, joined UM-Dearborn as a tenure-track Assistant Professor.
07/2024, invited to be a TPC member of IEEE ICPADS 2024.
05/2024, invited to be a TPC member of IEEE MSN 2024.
09/2023, joined Duke University as a Postdoctoral Associate.
05/2023, successfully defended my Ph.D. thesis.
09/2022, passed comprehensive exam.
01/2020, passed qualification exam.
01/2019, started PhD journey.
Research
I am interested in next-generation wireless communication and networking, particularly in the areas of optical wireless communication (OWC) and mmWave technologies. My interests also extend to underwater optical communication, localization, and navigation, as well as mobile computing. Additionally, I am intrigued by vehicle-to-everything (V2X) networks, AI-assisted novel applications, the Internet of Things (IoT), digital health, cyber-physical systems (CPS) security, and the Metaverse.
Conference Papers
HoloCube: 3D Opitcal IoT Connections via Software Defined Pepper's Ghost Xiao Zhang, Li Xiao, and Matt W. Mutka
ICNP 2024 | paper
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
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
RoFin: 3D Hand Pose Reconstructing via 2D Rolling Fingertips Xiao Zhang, Griffin Klevering, Juexing Wang, Li Xiao, and Tianxing Li
MobiSys 2023 | paper
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
Boosting Optical Camera Communication via 2D Rolling Blocks Xiao Zhang, Griffin Klevering, James Mariani, Li Xiao, and Matt Mutka
IWQoS 2023 | paper
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
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
LiFOD: Lighting Extra Data via Fine-grained OWC Dimming Xiao Zhang, James Mariani, Li Xiao, and Matt Mutka
SECON 2022 | paper
Effective Subcarrier Pairing for Hybrid Delivery in Relay Networks Xiao Zhang, Li Xiao
MASS 2020 | paper
k-Labelsets for Multimedia Classification with Global and Local Label Correlation
Yan Yan, Shining Li, Xiao Zhang, et.al
MMM 2018 | paper
Directional Monitoring of Multiple Moving Targets by Multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
Yan Pan, Shining Li, Xiao Zhang, et.al
GLOBECOM 2017 | paper
Multi-label Learning with Label-Specific Feature Selection
Yan Yan, Shining Li, Zhe Yang, Xiao Zhang, et.al
ICONIP 2017 | paper
Journal Papers
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
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
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
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
Holographic Optical Tag enabled Omindirectional IoT Connection
Xiao Zhang, Li Xiao, and Matt W. Mutka
SIGCOMM Poster 2024 | paper
Integrated On-site Localization and Optical Camera Communication for Drones
Xiao Zhang, Griffin Klevering, Kanishka Wijewardena, and Li Xiao
WoWMoM Demo 2023 | paper
Exploring Rolling Shutter Effect for Motion
Tracking with Objective Identification
Xiao Zhang, Griffin Klevering, Li Xiao
SenSys Poster 2022 | paper
Lighting Extra Data via OWC Dimming Xiao Zhang, Li Xiao
CoNEXT Workshop 2020 | paper
RainbowRow: Fast Optical Camera Communication Xiao Zhang, Li Xiao
ICNP Workshop 2020 | paper
Effective Subcarrier Pairing Scheme in mmWave-based Relay System Xiao Zhang, Li Xiao
mmWaveRCN Poster 2019 | paper
Teaching
At UM-Dearborn
CIS 400 Programming Languages
CIS 437/537 Advanced Networking
At MSU
CSE 331 Algorithms and Data Structures
CSE 260 Discrete Structures
CSE 232 Introduction to Programming II
ICSC 2025, INFOCOM 2020-2024, MobiCom 2024, MEDES 2024, ICC 2023, CVPR 2023, MASS 2019, GLOBECOM 2019, IEEE Transactions on Human-Machine Systems (THMS), IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing (TMC), IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications (JSAC), IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing (TDSC), ACM Transactions on Cyber-Physical Systems, IEEE Communication Letters