Dr Pan Cao is a Reader in Sensing and Communications at the University of Hertfordshire. His research interests include integrated sensing, imaging and communications, radar signal processing and detection, wireless sensing and localisation, and resilient positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) systems for next-generation networks and autonomous systems.

He received the BEng (First Class Honours) and MEng degrees from Xidian University, China, in 2008 and 2011, respectively, and the Dr.-Ing. degree (magna cum laude) in Electrical Engineering from Technische Universität Dresden, Germany, in 2015, under the supervision of Prof. Eduard Jorswieck. During 2008–2010, he conducted research on radar signal processing and SAR/ISAR imaging in the National Key Laboratory of Radar Signal Processing at Xidian University under the supervision of Prof. Mengdao Xing.

Following the completion of his PhD, he joined the University of Edinburgh as a Postdoctoral Research Associate, where he worked with Prof. John Thompson and Prof. Harald Haas on the EPSRC-funded 5G project Seamless and Adaptive Wireless Access for Efficient Future Networks (EP/L026147/1) until 2017. He was also a Visiting Postdoctoral Researcher in the group of Prof. H. Vincent Poor at Princeton University, USA, in 2017.

Dr Cao leads the EPSRC-funded project 6G-DISCO (£388k), developing distributed imaging and communication techniques for 6G cell-free massive MIMO systems in collaboration with Queen’s University Belfast within the UK Federated Telecoms Hub TITAN, led by the University of Cambridge, since 2024. Building on this work, he has continued to secure competitive research funding, including 6G-NetMAGIC (£225k), focusing on networked imaging for environmental monitoring, and 6G-MultiSense (£83k), investigating multi-RAT fused sensing for future 6G networks. He has also secured funding to support patent development for innovations in OFDM-based ISAC waveforms.

His international research portfolio includes participation in several major European projects, including the €6 million EU SNS-JU project TERRAMETA (2023-2025), which explores THz metasurface-aided localisation and sensing technologies. He previously led an European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)-funded project on satellite SAR-based soil moisture prediction using deep learning (2020-2021).

Dr Cao is actively engaged in technology transfer and industrial collaboration. He serves as Principal Investigator and Academic Supervisor for an Innovate UK Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) project (£290k) on advanced millimetre-wave 4D radar systems for intelligent traffic monitoring and tracking. The project successfully delivered an advanced mmWave radar prototype within 14 months and is targeting commercial deployment in Q4 2026. He also supervises Degree Apprenticeship projects undertaken by employees from Leonardo and MBDA. 

Dr Cao has received several prestigious awards, including the Qualcomm Innovation Fellowship (QInF) Award in 2013, where he was one of only three awardees across Europe. He also co-authored Best Student Paper Award-winning papers at IEEE SPAWC 2012 and the International Conference on Machine Learning for Networking (MLN) 2018.

He is actively involved in the research community and has served as the co-organiser and Co-Chair of several IEEE VTC workshops on integrated sensing and communications, and a panelist at IEEE WCNC 2021. He currently serves as Vice-Chair of the Special Interest Group on Integrated Sensing and Communications within the IEEE Communications Society Radio Communications Committee, and as Associate Editor for the EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking.

Dr Cao is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) and holds a Postgraduate Certificate in Education from the University of Hertfordshire. He teaches across undergraduate and postgraduate modules in communications, networking and embedded control systems, and supervises PhD candidates, MSc and BEng projects.

Several high-TRL demos for sensing and comm have been developed in his group, targeting the vertical applications such as home care, Counter-UAV, traffic monitoring and Geo-localization and mapping.