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Xiao Zhang

Office: 212 CIS Bld. | Lab: 108 CIS Bld. 4901 Evergreen Road, 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 Trustworthy AIoT 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).

Umich Email / Google Scholar / Michigan Experts

News

  • 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

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

    2. 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

    3. 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

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

    5. 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

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

    7. 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

    8. 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

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

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

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

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

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

    Journal Papers

    1. 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

    2. 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

    3. 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

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

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

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

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

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

    6. 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

    • Students

  • master
          Ashwin Sarvadey
          Jaskirat Sudan
          Rohit Raval
          Nishaant Madhankumar

  • undergraduate
          Christian Nwobu （NSF STEM Scholar）
          Deniz Acikbas
          Fatima Qasem （NSF STEM Scholar）
          Fatima Mohammed （NSF STEM Scholar）
          Soham Naik

  • intern
          Hasky Fynn

    • Awards

  • 2023/2021/2019, Graduate Office Fellowship, MSU

  • 2023, Dissertation Completion Fellowship, MSU

  • 2022, Graduate Travel Fellowship, MSU

  • 2019, Student Travel Grant, NSF-mmWaveRCN

  • 2016-2018, Postgraduate Scholarship, NPU

  • 2016, Outstanding Graduate, TUT

  • 2015, President Scholarship, Top 10, TUT

  • 2013/2014, National Encouragement Scholarship, China

    • Services

  • Program Committee

    INFOCOM DeepWireless 2025, ICNC 2025, MSN 2024, ICPADS 2024

  • External Reviewer

    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