Professor Shugong Xu

Professor Shugong Xu is the Associate Vice President for Research and Impact at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University and an academic staff in the Department of Intelligent Science at XJTLU’s School of Advanced Technology. He is an expert in artificial intelligence, pattern recognition, and wireless communication systems. He is recognised as a Leadership Talent in Technological Innovation under China’s National High-Level Talents Special Support Plan and is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE Fellow).

Professor Xu pursued his undergraduate studies at Wuhan University from 1986 to 1990. He then obtained his master’s degree in Pattern Recognition and Intelligent Control and his PhD in Communication and Information Systems at Huazhong University of Science and Technology between 1990 and 1996. From 1996 to 1998, he conducted postdoctoral research at the State Key Laboratory of Microwave and Digital Communication at Tsinghua University. He then engaged in research at Michigan State University and the City College of New York from 1998 to 2001.

From 2001 to 2008, he worked as a Senior Research Scientist at Sharp Laboratories of America. In 2008, he joined Huawei Technologies, serving in roles within the Wireless Research Department and the 2012 Labs. In 2013, he became the Director of the Mobile Network and Computing Convergence Research Lab at Intel Labs. At the end of 2016, Professor Xu joined Shanghai University as a Distinguished Professor in the School of Communication and served as the founding director of the Shanghai Institute for Advanced Communication and Data Science until mid-2021.

Professor Xu has served as the Co-chair of the Technical Committee of the Green Communications Alliance, the Chief Scientist of a National 863 Key Project, and the leader of multiple significant international and domestic R&D initiatives. He received the IEEE Communications Society’s Significant Advances in Communications Paper Award in 2017. In 2023, he was honoured with the Shanghai Natural Science First Prize.

He currently holds several prominent roles, including Vice Chair of the Image and Video Communication Technical Committee of the China Society of Image and Graphics, Executive Member of the Pattern Recognition and Intelligent Control Technical Committee of the Chinese Association of Automation, Director of the Shanghai Communication Society, Chair of its Intelligent Networking and Connected Systems Committee, and member of the Shanghai 5G/6G Expert Committee.

In wireless communication systems, Professor Xu was the first to identify the limitations of the 802.11 MAC protocol in wireless ad hoc networks and elucidated the underlying reasons, catalysing research and standardisation processes for the IEEE 802.11s international standard. He also proposed a theoretical framework for reducing energy consumption and improving energy efficiency in wireless communication systems. His optimisation of the HARQ and DRX signalling processes in LTE systems resulted in core patents that were incorporated into the 3GPP 4G standard.

In AI and pattern recognition, Professor Xu successfully developed next-generation license plate detection and recognition systems for unconstrained scenarios, lightweight and robust driver monitoring systems with mask resilience, and the world’s first large language model for organoid. Since 2017, he has focused on integrating AI with wireless communication systems, particularly intelligent communication-sensing convergence and its innovative applications in transportation and low-altitude economic ecosystems. He has also been dedicated to advancing holistic model-based research and the education of undergraduate and postgraduate students in these domains.