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).

Email / Google Scholar / Michigan Experts

News

02/2026, Christian received SURE and MSGC undergraduate research grants, congratulations.
02/2026, one paper about contactless battery sensing accepted at Sensors, congratulations.
02/2026, one paper accepted at ACM Trans. on Sensor Networks, congratulations.
01/2026, received two Bold Challenges and AIIM Seed Networking Awards for smart manufacturing, thanks UM.
01/2026, one paper accepted at IEEE ICC 2026, congratulations.
01/2026, invited to serve as TPC member of IEEE INFOCOM DeepWireless 2026.
01/2026, partnered with LAHC on K-12 STEM outreach.
01/2026, invited to give an AI-related speech at the College of Business, UM-Dearborn.
01/2026, one paper accepted at Ubicomp 2026, congratulations.
01/2026, one paper accepted at IEEE Trans. on Dependable and Secure Computing, congratulations.
12/2025, invited to serve as TPC member of IEEE ICDCS 2026.
12/2025, one paper accepted at IEEE Trans. on Mobile Computing, congratulations.
12/2025, received FRMG grant for indoor robot self-localization, thanks UM-Dearborn.
12/2025, received RAG grant for AI-enabled contactless battery sensing, thanks UM-Dearborn.
12/2025, received Academic Innovation Fund for Michigan Online Content Integration, thanks UM.
11/2025, invited to serve as local chair of EAI SmartSP 2026.
11/2025, invited to serve as NSF panelist.
11/2025, invited to serve as TPC member of IEEE SECON 2026.
11/2025, invited to serve as TPC member of IEEE MOST 2026.
10/2025, our security paper received Best Paper Award in IEEE DSC 2025, congratulations.
10/2025, invited to serve as TPC member of IEEE ICNC 2026.
10/2025, invited to give a research talk at ASME Detroit Section about next-generation wireless networks.
10/2025, our paper PlaCoB received Best Paper Award in IEEE MASS 2025, congratulations.
10/2025, invited to give a guest lecture at MSU about optical wireless communication and sensing.
08/2025, Jaskirat and Ashwin received EXP+ and STG grants to attend IEEE MASS 2025.
08/2025, one paper accepted at IEEE DSC 2025, congratulations.
08/2025, received NAIRR Pilot award to support our visible light positioning for smart manufacturing.
08/2025, one paper accepted at IEEE Trans. on Dependable and Secure Computing, congratulations.
08/2025, ViKey demo accepted at IEEE MASS 2025 as poster, congratulations.
08/2025, invited to serve as TPC of IEEE ICPADS 2025.
07/2025, three papers (ViKey, PlaCoB, and VIOSem) accepted at IEEE MASS 2025, congratulations all.
07/2025, received IHP Research and Engagement Fund, thanks UM.
06/2025, received OE Review grant, thanks OE committee.
05/2025, received OE Creation grant, thanks OE committee.
05/2025, partnered with Universal Academy Learning on K-12 STEM outreach.
04/2025, invited to serve as NSF panelist.
03/2025, received Creative Teaching fund, thanks UM-Dearborn.
01/2025, invited to serve as TPC member of IEEE INFOCOM DeepWireless 2025.
10/2024, invited to serve as TPC member of IEEE ICNC 2025.
09/2024, joined UM-Dearborn as a tenure-track Assistant Professor.
07/2024, invited to serve as TPC member of IEEE ICPADS 2024.
05/2024, invited to serve as 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

^* denotes the student under supervision/mentoring and ^{^} denotes the co-primary authors.

Conference Papers

BYOD-Gait: Spoofing Proof Gait Authentication with User-Owned Device
Khairul Mottakin, Xiao Zhang, and Zheng Song
ICC 2026 | paper
SoilNutri: A Passive Metasurface-based, Low-cost System for Soil Moisture and Nitrogen Monitoring
Juexing Wang, Binbin Xie, Yimeng Liu, Minhao Cui, Xiao Zhang, Guangjing Wang, Ke Sun, Zhichao Cao, Huacheng Zeng, Qingxu Jin, Younsuk Dong, Hui Li, Jie Xiong, Tianxing Li
Ubicomp 2026 | paper
Dissecting Privacy-Exposing Identifiers in 5G/4G Networks
Munshi Saifuzzaman, Ke Xie, Tian Xie, Xiao Zhang, and Xinyu Lei
DSC 2025 | paper | Best Paper Award
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 | teaser
PlaCoB: Collaborative Beamforming for Long Range Platoon-to-Platoon Communication
Griffin Klevering*, Kanishka P Wijewardena*, Xiao Zhang, and Li Xiao
MASS 2025 | paper | Best Paper Award
VIOSem: Visual-Inertial Odometry via Semantic Communication-enhanced Modulation Design
Kanishka P Wijewardena*, Griffin Klevering*, Xiao Zhang, and Li Xiao
MASS 2025 | paper
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

Contactless Battery Sensing: A Survey
Saravana Srinivasan*, Pedro Paiva*, Aditi Dharmadhikari*, Lyall Sathishkumar*, Christian Nwobu*, Ningyue Mao, Guilherme Hollweg, Xuan Zhou, Xiao Zhang
Sensors 2026 | paper
RainbowRow: Exploiting 2D Rolling Blocks for Improved LED-Camera Communication
Xiao Zhang, Griffin Klevering*, James Mariani, Kanishka P Wijewardena*, Li Xiao, and Matt W. Mutka
ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks 2026 | paper
Enjoy Without Payment: Model Parasitic Attacks Against Transfer Learning Models
Jinxue Zhao, Xinyu Lei, Hongyu Huang, Nankun Mu, Chao Chen, and Xiao Zhang
IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing 2026 | paper
Privacy-Protected Hand Pose Reconstruction and Air Writing via Rolling Spheres
Xiao Zhang, Deniz Acikbas*, Soham Naik*, Griffin Klevering*, Juexing Wang, Zaynab Mourtada*, Li Xiao, and Tianxing Li
IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing 2026 | paper
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
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
Network 2023 | paper

Workshop/Poster/Demo Papers

A Passive Optical Tagging Approach for Secure and Revocable Entry Systems
Hasky E Fynn*, Jaskirat Sudan*, Fatima Qasem*, Fatima Mohammed*, and Xiao Zhang
MASS Demo 2025 | paper
Holographic Optical Tag enabled Omindirectional IoT Connection
Xiao Zhang, Li Xiao, and Matt W. Mutka
SIGCOMM Poster 2024 | paper
RadCloud: Real-Time High-Resolution Point Cloud Generation Using Low-Cost mmWave Radars for Aerial and Ground Vehicles
David Hunt, Shaocheng Luo, Amir Khazraei, Xiao Zhang, Spencer Hallyburton, Tingjun Chen, Miroslav Pajic
MobiCom Demo 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
CIS 546 Security and Privacy in Wireless Networks
At MSU
CSE 331 Algorithms and Data Structures
CSE 260 Discrete Structures
CSE 232 Introduction to Programming II

Students

Ph.D.
Deniz Acikbas
master
Ashwin Sarvadey
Selase Doku
Rathikadevi Mani
Lyall Sathishkumar
undergraduate
Christian Nwobu （NSF STEM Scholar/SURE Scholar/MSGC Scholar）
Fatima Qasem （NSF STEM Scholar）
Fatima Mohammed （NSF STEM Scholar）
Zubair Shareef （NSF STEM Scholar）
Zhalgas Tileumuratin
Pedro Paiva
Nitin Madhu
intern
Hasky Fynn
alumni
Deniz Acikbas (now Ph.D. at UM-Dearborn)
Shamit Dholakiya
Syed Gilani （UM SURE Scholar）
Jaskirat Sudan
Nishaant Madhankumar
Rohit Raval
Saravana Srinivasan
Aditi Dharmadhikari

Awards

2026, MSGC Undergraduate Research Grant, NASA
2026, SURE Program, UM-Dearborn
2026, Bold Challenges and AIIM Seed Networking Award, UM
2025, FRMG Grant, UM-Dearborn
2025, RAG Grant, UM-Dearborn
2025, Academic Innovation Fund, UM
2025, Best Paper Award, IEEE DSC
2025, Best Paper Award, IEEE MASS
2025, IHP Research and Engagement Grant, UM
2025, OE Review Grant, UM-Dearborn
2025, OE Creation Grant, UM-Dearborn
2025, Creative Teaching Fund, UM-Dearborn
2025, SURE Program, UM-Dearborn
2025, NeTS ECI Travel Grant, NSF
2024, Regional I-Corps Fund, NSF
2024, RAG Grant, UM-Dearborn
2023/2021/2019, Graduate Office Fellowship, MSU
2023, Dissertation Completion Fellowship, MSU
2022, Graduate Travel Fellowship, MSU
2019, mmWave-RCN Student Travel Grant, NSF
2016-2018, Postgraduate Scholarship, NPU
2016, Outstanding Graduate, TUT
2015, President Scholarship, Top 10, TUT
2013/2014, National Encouragement Scholarship, China

Services

Program Committee
ICDCS 2026, SECON 2026, MOST 2026, ICNC 2026, INFOCOM DeepWireless 2025/2026, ICPADS 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, ACM Transactions on Computing Education, 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