Xiaonan Hui

Education

Ph.D. Candidate | (5th Year) | Cornell University

• Major: Electrical and Computer Engineering                 

• Advisor: Prof. Edwin C. Kan

M.S. | June 2015 | Zhejiang University, China

• Major: Electronic Science and Technology                    

• Advisor: Prof. Xianmin Zhang

B.S. | July 2012 | Northeastern University, China

• Major: Electronics and Information Engineering      

​

Expertise and Interests

• Vital signs monitoring through RF signals.

• High resolution RFID localization and imaging systems.

• Electromagnetic simulation.

• Signal processing and algorithm development.

• Personal thermoregulation.

• Electro-optic sensing systems.

• Electromechanical system design.

​

Honors and Awards

• Outstanding Thesis Research Award for 2020, ECE, Cornell (Spring, 2020).

• Richard E. Lunquist Graduate Award (Spring, 2020).

• IEEE International Microwave Biomedical Conference 2019 (IEEE-IMBioC 2019) Best Student Paper Award.

• Principal investigator of Cornell Scale-up and Prototype Grants ($36k, 9 months, 2019).

• Research works about vital signs over radio is highly interested by Amazon, Google, Analog Device, SP Global, Toyota, Pfizer, Philips and other more than 30 companies and research institutes worldwide. Currently the works are supported by US Department of Energy (ARPA-E), US Department of Defense (CDMRP), Cornell Technology Acceleration and Maturation (CTAM), and Cornell Scale-up and Prototype Grants. And draws the funds from NIH and Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (2019).

• Philips Grand Challenge Finalists (2018).

• Research works about vital signs over radio is featured by Nature, Deutsche Presse Agentur (DPA), Daily Mail, Discover Magazine, IEEE Spectrum, Phys.org, Cornell Chronicle and other more than 20 press organizations (2018).

• Top 10 in “Technology Needed for Journey to Mars” NASA iTech forum (2017).

• HP Fellowship (Spring, 2016).

• George W. Holbrook Fellowship (Fall, 2015).

• National Scholarship, China (2014).

​

Research Experience

• Vital signs over radio                                                           Jan 2017 to present, Cornell University

Supervisor: Prof. Edwin C. Kan

The mechanical motion of a person/animal can be directly modulated onto multiplexed radio frequency signals using near-field coherent sensing (NCS), allowing vital signs such as heartbeat dynamics, blood pressures and respiration to be monitored without direct contact to the skin.

Ref. publications: [1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 14].

Ref. patents: [1, 2, 3, 6].

• Harmonic RFID Indoor ranging & localization                          Sep 2015 to present, Cornell University

Supervisor: Prof. Edwin C. Kan

Designed an intelligent non-linear transmission line tag. Combined with the second harmonic reader, the tag’s ID and accurate (50 microns in air, 5 microns in water) ranging and (millimeters) position can be obtained.

Ref. publications: [3, 5, 11, 12, 13, 16, 17].

Ref. patents: [4].

• CDMA protocols for harmonic RFID system                             Feb 2016 to present, Cornell University

Supervisor: Prof. Edwin C. Kan

The CDMA protocols are developed for the harmonic RFID tags and collaborative readers. The protocols provide better tag access synchronization, noise performance and tag yield rate.

Ref. publications: [10, 11, 12, 17].

Ref. patents: [5] (Purchased by Aveer, $800,000).

• Multistatic indoor RF imaging                                                 June 2016 to present, Cornell University

Supervisor: Prof. Edwin C. Kan

Apply the harmonic RFID and conventional RFID system as the multi-static imaging system for the smart building and assistant live applications. The system can obtain the tag-less object’s imaging to derive the location, object shape and dynamic information.

• Thermoelectric personal thermoregulation                                Sep 2016 to July 2018, Cornell University

Supervisors: Prof. Edwin C. Kan & Prof. Jintu Fan

Integrate the thermoelectric devices on the undergarments for the personal thermoregulation. The innovative passive garment-integrated temperature sensor is developed and tested.

Ref. publications: [7, 15, 18].

• Millimeter wave vortex communication                                    May 2013 to Jun 2015, Zhejiang University

Supervisor: Prof. Xianmin Zhang

With a ring resonator structure antenna, two orbital angular momentum modes millimeter wave (60 GHz band) beam can be generated. The MMW vortex multiplex communication link is achieved and tested.

Ref. publications: [19, 20, 21, 26, 27, 28 29, 30, 31].

Ref. patents: [7, 8].

• Phase sensitive OTDR distributed fiber sensor                          July 2012 to Jun 2015, Zhejiang University

Supervisor: Prof. Xianmin Zhang

A real-time 22km, 15m resolution OTDR distributed fiber sensor is built and tested with the innovated hardware system and algorithm design.

Ref. publications: [22, 23, 24, 25].

• Collaborative robotic system                                        Sep 2011 to Jun 2012, Northeastern University

Supervisor: Prof. Dehong Cong

Worked on the LIDAR and motor system to navigate and control the robots.

​

Selected News

• Contactless health-care sensing (Nature)

• Engineers scrap the stethoscope, measure vital signs with radio waves (Cornell Chronicle)

• Simultaneous touchless monitoring of several patients’ vital signs (IEEE Spectrum)

• The end of the stethoscope? Incredible wireless system allows doctors to monitor a patient's heart using radio waves (Daily Mail)

• Measuring vital signs just got easier (Discover Magazine)

• Kleidung überwacht puls, atmung, blutdruck (Spiegel Online, Deutsche Presse-Agentur)

• How do you take a hamster’s pulse? (Science)

• Vital signs without handling or animal prep (Lab Animal, Springer Nature)

• No-touch sensor measures vital signs of small animals (Cornell Chronicle)

• Non-contact technique measures vital signs in conscious small animals (Physicsworld)

• Tech used to thwart shoplifters could help keep buildings safe (Cornell Chronicle)

• NASA iTech finalists invited to Washington to present future space exploration technology Ideas (NASA)

​

Journals and Conferences as Independent Reviewer  

• Nature Electronics (Springer Nature)

• IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques (IEEE)

• IEEE Access (IEEE)

• IEEE Journal of Selected Areas in Communications (IEEE)

• Microwave and Optical Technology Letters (Wiley Online Library)

• 2019 IEEE EMBS International Conference on Biomedical & Health Informatics (IEEE EMBS BHI)

​

Highlighted Publications and Pre-Publications​

1. X. Hui and E. C. Kan “Monitoring vital signs over multiplexed radio by near-field coherent sensing.” Nature Electronics 1 (2018). The first research paper on Nat. Electron. when the 1st issue is published, and this work is featured on Nature Research News and other more than 20 press organizations.

2. X. Hui and E. C. Kan “Radio ranging with ultrahigh resolution using a harmonic radio-frequency identification system.” Nature Electronics, 2 (2019).

3. X. Hui and E. C. Kan “No-touch measurements of vital signs in small conscious animals.” Science Advances, 13 (2019).

4. X. Hui and E. C. Kan “Multi-point near-field RF sensing of blood pressures and heartbeat dynamics” IEEE Access, (2020).

​

Publication List

1. X. Hui and E. C. Kan “Vocal cord vibration detecting by harmonic RFID system” pre-submission, (2020).

2. X. Hui, J. Zhou and E. C. Kan “Parallel mice vital signs detecting with near-field coherent sensing” IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, (2020).

3. X. Hui and E. C. Kan “Multi-point near-field RF sensing of blood pressures and heartbeat dynamics” IEEE Access, (2020)

4. X. Hui, P. Sharma and E. C. Kan “Microwave stethoscope for heart sound by near-field coherent sensing” Microwave Symposium (IMS), 2019 IEEE MTT-S International. IEEE, (2019).

5. X. Hui and E. C. Kan “Harmonic UHF RFID ranging with 50-micron accuracy and 1-kHz sampling rate.” 2019 IEEE International Conference on RFID, (2019).

6. X. Hui and E. C. Kan “Seat integration of RF vital-sign monitoring.” IMBioC2019, (2019).(Best Student Paper Award)

7. X. Hui and E. C. Kan “Radio ranging with ultrahigh resolution using a harmonic radio-frequency identification system.” Nature Electronics 2, (2019).

8. X. Hui and E. C. Kan “No-touch measurements of vital signs in small conscious animals.” Science Advances 13, (2019).

9. X. Hui and E. C. Kan “Monitoring vital signs over multiplexed radio by near-field coherent sensing.” Nature Electronics 1, (2018).

10. X. Hui and E. C. Kan “Accurate extraction of heartbeat intervals with near-field coherent sensing.” IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC), (2018).

11. X. Hui and E. C. Kan “Mitigation of body movement interference in near-field coherent sensing for heartrate monitoring.” Body Sensor Networks Conference (BSN), (2018).

12. X. Hui and E. C. Kan “Collaborative reader code division multiple access in the harmonic RFID system.” IEEE Journal of Radio Frequency Identification, 2 (2018).

13. X. Hui, Y. Ma and E. C. Kan “Code division multiple access in centimeter accuracy harmonic RFID locating systems.” IEEE Journal of Radio Frequency Identification, 1 (2017).

14. X. Hui, Y. Ma and E. C. Kan “Real-time code-division multi-tag localization with centimeter accuracy.” 2017 IEEE International Conference on RFID, (2017).

15. X. Hui, Y. Ma and E. C. Kan “Real-time 3D robotic arm tracking in indoor environment by RF nonlinear backscattering.” 2016 ACM S3, New York City, (2016).

16. P. Sharma, X. Hui, J. Zhou, T. B. Conroy and E.C. Kan, "Long-term continuous cardiopulmonary monitoring using wearable RF sensors." pre-submission (2020).

17. P. Sharma, X. Hui and E. C. Kan “A Wearable RF Sensor for Monitoring Respiratory Patterns.” International Engineering in Medicine and Biology Conference, 2019 EMBC, (2019).

18. Y. Cao, X. Hui and E. C. Kan “An RF-to-DC rectifier based on tunable threshold diodes.” IEEE Journal of Radio Frequency Identification 3 (2019).

19. Y. Ma, X. Hui and E. C. Kan “3D real-time indoor localization via broadband nonlinear backscatter in passive devices with centimeter precision.” 2016 ACM MobiCom, New York City, (2016).

20. Y. Ma, X. Hui and E. C. Kan “Harmonic-WISP: a passive broad band harmonic RFID platform.” Microwave Symposium (IMS), 2016 IEEE MTT-S International. IEEE, (2016).

21. G. Xu, P. Sharma, X. Hui and E. C. Kan “3-dimensional device-free object locating using passive radio frequency identification.” (pre-submission, 2020).

22. L. Lou, D. Shou, H. Park, D. Zhao, Y. S. Wu, X. Hui, R. Yang, E. C. Kan and J. Fan “Thermoelectric air conditioning undergarment for personal thermoregulation.” (Submitted, 2019).

23. X. Hui, et al. “Local topological charge analysis of electromagnetic vortex beam based on empirical mode decomposition.” Optics Express 24, 5423-5430 (2016).

24. X. Hui, et al. “Multiplexed millimeter wave communication with dual orbital angular momentum (OAM) mode antennas.” Scientific Reports 5, (2015).

25. X. Hui, et al. “Ultralow reflectivity spiral phase plate for generation of millimeter-wave OAM beam.” IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters 14, 966-969, (2015).

26. X. Hui, et al. “Hilbert–Huang transform time-frequency analysis phi-OTDR distributed sensor.” IEEE Photonics Technology Letters 26 2403-2406, (2014).

27. X. Hui, et al. “Space-frequency analysis with parallel computing in a phase-sensitive optical time-domain reflectometer distributed sensor” Applied Optics 53 (28), 6586-6590, (2014).

28. X. Hui, et al. “Electro-optic modulator feedback control in phase-sensitive optical time-domain reflectometer distributed sensor” Applied Optics 52 (35), 8581-8585, (2013).

29. X. Hui, et al. “A real-time detection and self-control phase-sensitive OTDR distributed sensor system.” 2013 12th International Conference on Optical Communications and Networks, (2013).

30. S. Zheng, X. Hui, et al. “Transmission characteristics of a twisted radio wave based on circular traveling-wave antenna.” IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation 63 (4), 1530-1536, (2015).

31. S. Zheng, X. Hui, et al. “Orbital angular momentum mode-demultiplexing scheme with partial angular receiving aperture.” Optics Express 23 (9), 12251-12257, (2015).

32. S. Zheng, X. Hui, et al. “Generation of OAM millimeter waves using traveling-wave circular slot antenna based on ring resonant cavity.” 2015 IEEE International Conference on Computational Electromagnetics (ICCEM), (2015).

33. W. Zhang, S Zheng, X. Hui, et al. “Mode division multiplexing communication using microwave orbital angular momentum: an experimental study” IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications 16 (2), 1308-1318, (2017).

34. W. Zhang, S Zheng, X. Hui, et al. “Four-OAM-mode antenna with traveling-wave ring-slot structure” IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, (2016).

35. Y. Chen, S. Zheng, Y. Li, X. Hui, et al. “A flat-lensed spiral phase plate based on phase-shifting surface for generation of millimeter-wave OAM beam” IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters 15, 1156-1158, (2016).

​

Patent

U.S. 

1. X. Hui and E. C. Kan “Multiple-input-multiple-output near-field coherent sensing for heartbeat dynamics” (Filed, Nov. 2019).

2. X. Hui and E. C. Kan “Seat integration of RF vital-sign monitoring.” (Filed, Jan. 2019).

3. X. Hui and E. C. Kan “Microwave stethoscope for heart sound using near-field coherent sensing.” (Filed, Jan. 2019).

4. X. Hui and E. C. Kan “High spatial and temporal ranging resolution of passive RFID tags.” (Filed, Sep. 2018).

5. E. C. Kan and X. Hui “Collaborative RFID reader using code divisional multiple access (CDMA) and methods for same” (Filed, Aug. 2018).

6. X. Hui and E. C. Kan “Methods and systems for in vivo electromagnetic near-field coherent sensing.” (Filed, Jun. 2017).

China

  7. X. Hui, S. Zheng, X. Zhang, X. Jin and H. Chi, ZL201410539014.0 (Jan. 2017).

  8. Y. Chen, Y. Li, X. Hui, S. Zheng and X. Zhang, ZL201510654873.9 (Oct. 2017).

​

Oral Presentations

1. DAP Seminar in Woo Center for Big Data and Precision Health at Duke University, Sep. 2019.

2. Oral session in 2019 IEEE MTT-S International Microwave Symposium (IMS), Boston, Jun. 2019.

3. Oral session in 2019 IEEE MTT-S International Microwave Biomedical Conference, Nanjing, May 2019.

4. Oral session in 2019 IEEE International Conference on RFID, Phoenix, Apr. 2019.

5. EDS Seminar in School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Cornell University, May 2018.

6. Oral session in 2018 IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC), Kansas City, May 2018.

7. Oral session in 2018 IEEE Body Sensor Networks Conference (BSN), Las Vegas, Mar. 2018.

8. Oral session in 2017 IEEE International Conference on RFID, Phoenix, May 2017.

9. S3 Workshop in 2016 ACM MobiCom, New York City, Sep. 2016.

10. Oral session in 2016 IEEE MTT-S International Microwave Symposium (IMS), San Francesco, May. 2016.

11. Oral session in 2013 IEEE Photoics-S International Conference on Optical Communications and Networks (ICOCN), Chengdu, Jul. 2013.

​

Youth Mentoring and Assisting

• Tejas Advait (Undergraduate, ECE, Cornell; M.Eng., CS, Cornell), Jan. 2019 to present.

NCS platform developments, Harmonic Localization Applications.

• Nicolas Casazzone (M.Eng., ECE, Cornell), Aug. 2019 to present.

Harmonic Localization, CST simulations.

• Yunlei Zhang (Visiting 3rd year PhD student, Tianjin University), Oct. 2019 to present.

Collaborative reader CDMA localization system.

• Thomas Conroy (1st year Ph.D. student in the same group), Aug. 2019 to present.

First-year initial project, MIMO NCS human testing.

• Hannah Si (Undergraduate, CEE, Cornell), Aug. 2018 to Jul. 2019.

NCS SDR platform testing and experiments.

• Jianlin Zhou (1st year Ph.D. student in the same group), Aug. 2018 to May. 2019.

First-year initial project, compact NCS platform design.

• Guoyi Xu (1st year Ph.D. student in the same group), Aug. 2018 to May. 2019.

First-year initial project, UHF RFID indoor imaging.

• Sophia Yan (M.Eng., ECE, Cornell), Aug. 2017 to May 2018.

Harmonic SDR transceiver testing.

• Rex Chen (M.Eng., ECE, Cornell), Aug. 2016 to May 2017.

UHF RFID system for sleeping study.

​

Active Collaborators of NCS Technology                 

Research Oranizations

Duke Lemur Center, Federal Bureau of Investigation, The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Cornell Dairy Center of Excellence, Cornell University Hospital for Animals, Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research, New York Presbyterian Hospital, Weill Cornell Medicine, Canadian Science Centre for Human and Animal Health.

Companies

PsychoGenics Inc. (Paramus, NJ), RWB Canine Inc. (San Antonio, Tx), ADI Analog Garage (Boston, MA).

​

Google Scholar

https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=YqJC8scAAAAJ&view_op=list_works

​

References

​

Edwin C. Kan (PhD advisor)
Professor
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
Cornell University
Email:

David L. Hysell
Professor and Chair
Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
Cornell University
Email:

Jintu Fan
D.Sc, Ph.D, Hon. FTI
Head and Chair Professor of Fiber Science and Apparel Engineering
Institute of Textiles & Clothing
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Email:
Former assignment at Cornell University:
Vincent V.C. Woo Professor in Fiber Science and Apparel Design
Department Chair & CIFFI Director
Cornell Institute of Fashion and Fiber Innovation
Department of Fiber Science & Apparel Design
College of Human Ecology, Cornell University

Martin Teschl
Associate Director
Center for Technology Licensing,
Cornell University
Email: