Zhaoyuan Xu

I received my Ph.D. degree from the School of Computer Science and Technology at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in 2026, where I was advised by Prof. Wei Gong. Before that, I received my B.E. degree from USTC in 2020. I will soon join the Department of Computer Science at City University of Hong Kong as a postdoctoral researcher, working with Prof. Zhenjiang Li. My work is centered on passive IoT, backscatter communication, and wireless technologies. I am especially interested in how everyday wireless signals can be reused to connect ultra-low-power devices and make sensing systems easier to deploy in the real world.

Recent News:

  • I will join the Department of Computer Science, City University of Hong Kong as an incoming postdoctoral researcher, working with Prof. Zhenjiang Li.
  • I received my Ph.D. degree from USTC in June 2026.
  • I was honored as an Outstanding Graduate, USTC in 2026.
  • Our work Overwriting Ambient Excitations for Pervasive, Universal, and Efficient ZigBee Backscatter is accepted at ACM/IEEE ToN 2026.
  • Our work Practical Downlink Communication for Backscatter Tags with Commodity Radios is accepted at IEEE INFOCOM 2026.

Main Publications:

Overwriting Ambient Excitations for Pervasive, Universal, and Efficient ZigBee Backscatter

Zhaoyuan Xu, Wei Gong, and Amiya Nayak

ACM/IEEE, ToN 2026

Practical Downlink Communication for Backscatter Tags with Commodity Radios

Zhaoyuan Xu, Jiuwei Li, and Wei Gong

IEEE, INFOCOM 2026

Embracing self-powered wearables for intelligent healthcare data management

Wei Gong, Zhaoyuan Xu, Longzhi Yuan, Haoquan Zhou, Si Chen, Yuan Ding, Amiya Nayak, Jiangchuan Liu

IEEE, IOTJ 2024
[pdf] [website]

BumbleBee: Enabling the Vision of Pervasive ZigBee Backscatter Communication

Zhaoyuan Xu, Wei Gong

IEEE, PerCom 2023
[pdf] [slides] [website]

Enabling ZigBee Backscatter Communication in a Crowded Spectrum

Zhaoyuan Xu, Wei Gong

IEEE, ICNP 2022
[pdf] [slides] [website]

Awards:

  • Outstanding Graduate, USTC, 2026
  • Suzhou Industrial Park Scholarship, 2022
  • First-class academic scholarship, 2022-2025

Services:

Invited Reviewer:
  • IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing
  • IEEE Internet of Things Journal
  • IEEE Communications Letters
  • Information Fusion
  • IEEE PerCom 2023
  • IEEE CCNC 2023
  • IEEE MASS 2022-2023
Technical Program Committee
  • IEEE HPCC 2024-2025
  • NAS 2026
  • ICA3PP 2026

Patents:

  • CN120474577A, Backscatter downlink communication method and system for commodity radios
  • CN118646516A, Efficient ZigBee backscatter communication system and method based on codeword translation
  • CN119946786A, Multimodal backscatter method, smart bracelet, storage medium, and program product
  • CN120110439A, ZigBee backscatter method, system, electronic device, and storage medium

Contact:

  • xzy0117@mail.ustc.edu.cn
  • Department of Computer Science, City University of Hong Kong