Pan Cao

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Dr Pan Cao

FHEA, Senior Lecturer

20102025

Research activity per year

Personal profile

Overview

Pan Cao is a Senior Lecturer in Electronics and Communications since Sept. 2017. He received the BEng degree (with first class) and the MEng degree both from Xidian University, China in 2008 and 2011, respectively, and the Dr.-Ing (Ph.D.) degree in Electrical Engineering from TU Dresden, Germany in Jan. 2015, supervised by Prof. Eduard Jorswieck. He worked on radar signal processing and imaging, especially on SAR/ISAR imaging, in the National Key Lab of Radar Signal Processing, Xidian University, during 2008-2010, with Prof. Mengdao Xing. After finishing Ph.D. from Germany, he worked with Prof. John Thompson and Prof. Harald Haas as a Postdoctoral research associate in the Institute for Digital Communications at the University of Edinburgh, supported by the EPSRC 5G project from Mar. 2015 to Sept. 2017. He was also a visiting Postdoctoral researcher in Prof. H. Vincent Poor's group at Princeton University, USA during Jan.-Mar. 2017. 
 
He has authored and co-authored two Best Student Paper Award of the 13th IEEE International Workshop on Signal Processing Advances in Wireless Communications (SPAWC) in 2012 and International Conference on Machine Learning for Networking (MLN) in 2018. He also received the Qualcomm Innovation Fellowship (QInF) Award in 2013, as one of the three winners in continent of Europe. He is the vice chair of SIP on integration of sensing and communication in IEEE ComSoc's Radio Communications Committee. He currently serves as an Associate Editor for EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking.
 
He is leading an EPSRC funded project 6G-DISCO (Distributed imaging and communication for 6G cell-free massive MIMO, £388K) jointly working with the Queen's University of Belfast, and partnering with the UK Federated EPSRC 6G Hub - TITAN (led by University of Cambridge). He has been involved in some EU projects, e.g., Project Leader for a £65k ERDF grant on "soil moisture prediction based on satellite SAR (radar) imagery via deep learning" (2020-2021) and Co-investigator in a €6m EU-SNS-JU-2022 TERRAMATE for "THz metasurface-aided localisation and sensing". He is also dedicated to transferring his expertise into industry, e.g., he is a Principal Investigator for an Innovate UK KTP grant "advanced millimetre wave 4D radar design for complex traffic monitoring and tracking" awarded in 2024 (£272k for 32 months).

He received the Postgraduate certificate in Education from University of Hertfordshire and awarded as a Fellow of Higher Education Academy (FHEA) in Sept. 2018.

Education Background

  • BEng. degree in Mechanical Design and Manufacturing and Its Automation, Xidian University, China              Oct.2004 - July. 2008
  • MEng. degree in Information and Signal Processing, National Key Lab of Radar Signal Processing, Xidian University, Aug. 2008 - Mar.2011

           Thesis: Motion Compensation in High Resolution ISAR Imaging, Supervisor: Prof. Mengdao Xing

  • Dr-Ing (Ph.D.) degree in Electrical Engineering,  TU Dresden, Germany,   Oct. 2010 - Jan.2015          

           Thesis: Resource Allocation for MIMO Interference Networks, Supervisor: Prof. Eduard Jorswieck 

 

Research interests

  • 5G mobile communications
  1. Millimeter-wave communication
  2. Green communications
  3. Multi-antenna signal processing
  4. Resource allocation and network scheduling
  • Integration of radar sensing and communication;
  1. Target detection & imaging
  2. Localization
  • Convex/non-convex optimization
  1. novel non-convex optimization algorithm design
  2. low rank constrainted optimization
  3. multi-objective optimization

 

Research on Intergration of Localization, Sensing and Communication:

  • Panlist of IEEE WCNC's Panel on "Integration of Sensing and Communication", March 2021
  • Vice-Chair of SIP on Integration of Sensing and Communication in IEEE ComSoc's Radio Communication Committee (RCC) since 2021.

           We regularly arrange some meeting and webinar on ISAC, please email me if you want to join us!

  • Some our related work:
  1. Submitted the paper " Cellular Base Station Imaging" to IEEE JSAC SI on ISAC. It's for the first time to propose this novel concept and enable BS to "see" targets, besides the conventional communication functionality.
  2. Submitted the paper " Asynchronous Integration of Communication and Localization Systems Using IR-UWB Signals" to MILCOM 2021;
  3. Y. Zhuang, Q. Wang, M. Shi, P. Cao, L. Qi and J. Yang, "Low-Power Centimeter-Level Localization for Indoor Mobile Robots Based on Ensemble Kalman Smoother Using Received Signal Strength," in IEEE Internet of Things Journal, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 6513-6522, Aug. 2019
  4. Y. Zhuang et al., "A Survey of Positioning Systems Using Visible LED Lights," in IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, vol. 20, no. 3, pp. 1963-1988, thirdquarter 2018.
  5. P. Cao, J. S. Thompson and H. Haas, "Constant Modulus Shaped Beam Synthesis via Convex Relaxation," in IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, vol. 16, pp. 617-620, 2017
  6. P. Cao, M. Xing, G. Sun, Y. Li and Z. Bao, "Minimum Entropy via Subspace for ISAR Autofocus," in IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 205-209, Jan. 2010.
  7. P. Cao, J. Thompson and H. V. Poor, "A sequential constraint relaxation algorithm for rank-one constrained problems," 2017 25th European Signal Processing Conference (EUSIPCO), 2017

           The proposed SOCR algorithm provides the excellent performance for rank one constrainted problems. It can solve a series of Semidefinite Programs, e.g., from the phased only beamforming problem in RIS and analog preocoder!! 

 

Teaching

  • 6ENT1014 - Satellite Terrestrial Communication Systems (@UH 2017/2018 Semester B)

  • 7ENT1050 - Broadband Networks And Data Communications (@UH 2017/2018 Semester B) 

  • 7ENT1054 - Digital Mobile Communication Systems (@UH 2018/2019 Semester A)

 

Openings

I'm currently looking for highly motivated PhD candidates who want to work with me.

 

Visiting scholars/students are also welcome and can be accepted all year around. 

 

Please drop me an email with your CV at anytime.

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  • 17 Article
  • 16 Paper
  • 8 Conference contribution
  • 1 Chapter (peer-reviewed)
View all 42 research outputs