Yuxiang Liu is a Ph.D. candidate in Electrical and Computer Engineering at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), advised by Prof. Basem Shihada, where his research focuses on optical wireless communication systems, particularly DLS-based sunlight communication, embedded systems, FPGA-enabled hardware/software co-design, and wireless networking and indoor positioning technologies.
Biography
Yuxiang Liu is a Ph.D. candidate in Electrical and Computer Engineering at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), where he has studied since August 2021. His research is on Sun-Fi, a wireless communication system that uses modulated sunlight to send data. He built a complete Sun-Fi prototype on his own, covering everything from the hardware to the protocol layer. This included an FPGA-based control board, high-precision DAC driver arrays for dual-cell liquid crystal shutters (DLS), photodiode and transimpedance-amplifier receivers, and the MAC-layer coding and scheduling. On the theory side, he modeled the system at the physical level, derived channel capacity and performance limits for SISO, MISO, and MIMO setups, and developed a 3D indoor positioning method that uses sunlight. He has published first-author papers at flagship conferences including IEEE ICC and IEEE WCNC, and more of his work is under review in IEEE journals. In 2025 he was named to MIT Technology Review’s Innovators Under 35 (Middle East and North Africa). He has also won First Prize in the 6G Summit Young Scholar Competition, an Honorable Mention in the IEEE ComSoc Student Competition 2025, and a Silver Award at the 2026 China International College Students’ Innovation Competition (Middle East Regional).
Expertise and Interests
Yuxiang's research focuses on optical wireless communication systems, with an emphasis on developing sustainable and ultra-low-energy indoor networking solutions that leverage natural sunlight as a communication medium. His work spans the theoretical modeling, optimization, and experimental validation of DLS-based sunlight communication systems, including SISO, MISO, and MIMO architectures for high-capacity wireless connectivity. He is particularly interested in the intersection of communication systems and embedded computing, combining FPGA-based implementations, embedded systems design, and hardware-software co-design to build end-to-end communication prototypes. His research also explores indoor positioning and localization using optical infrastructures, as well as the application of machine learning and reinforcement learning techniques for wireless resource allocation, beam steering, and network optimization in next-generation smart building environments.
About
Awards and Distinctions
- First-class academic scholarship, Xi’an Jiaotong University, 2018 - 2021
- National first prize of National University Electronics Design Contest, Higher Education Department of the Ministry of Education, Personnel Department of the Ministry of Information Industry, 2017
Qualifications
Education
- Master of Engineering (M.Eng.)
- Mechanical Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, China, 2021
- Bachelor of Science (B.S.)
- Electronic and Information Engineering, Southwest Jiaotong University, China, 2018
Licenses and Certifications
- Assistant electronic design engineer, Chinese Institute of Electronics, Fri, Dec 1 2017
- English
- understand, read, write, speak, peer review
Languages
Quote
KAUST gives me opportunities to explore the state-of-art technology. In KAUST, every day is a challenge, but every day is progress.
Related People
Principal Investigators
Basem Shihada
- Program Chair, Computer Science