Biography
About me
I am a Professor in AI, Computer Vision and Machine Learning in the Department of Computer Science, Loughborough University. I am a key member of Centre for Sensing and Imaging Science, and Vision, AI, Autonomous and Human Centred Systems Research Group. I received a PhD degree in Computer Science from Aberystwyth University, and MSc and BSc degrees in Electronic Engineering from Tianjin University, China (one of the top 15 universities in China).
Research expertise
I have over 15-year research track record in AI, computer vision, machine learning, pattern recognition and signal/image processing. Primary research topics include:
- Artificial Intelligence
- Computer vision and pattern recognition
- Machine learning and deep learning
- Image and signal processing
- Human-computer interaction
- Computer graphics, virtual reality and visualization technology
Publications
More than 90 papers have been published in high impact journals and conferences. such as publications in recent years in the most prestigious scientific journals in my research area: IEEE Trans. on Cybernetics, IEEE Trans. Industrial Informatics, IEEE Trans. Image Processing, IEEE Trans. System, Man, Cybernetics, IEEE Trans. Biomed Eng., Pattern Recognition, Information Sciences, and IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics. Selected publications
Enterprise, Knowledge Transfer & Impact
My research emphasizes innovations and novel applications of AI, computer vision, machine learning, pattern recognition and deep learning techniques for human motion analysis, robotics, HCI, surveillance, ambient assisted living, machine vision, intelligent systems, big data, IoT and sensor data fusion. I work with industry on a number of projects funded by Innovate UK, Newton Fund and KTP etc.
My research has been widely reported by media, including New Scientist, AI Business, Engineering & Technology, Interesting Engineering, etc.
My expertise in human motion tracking and activity recognition leads to the commercial product "Dance UK", and reported by BBC, S4C on TV evening news, Independent, Western Mail, Cambrian News, Dailypost and websites). The current football project funded by the Innovate UK leads to prestigious MSDUK Innovation Challenge Award under category Industry 4.0 in 2019. The research has generated and will continually produce social and economic impact.
Grants
I have a proven track record of attracting external funding. I contributed to a number of projects funded by EPSRC, Innovate UK, Newton, NHS, TSB and industry. In the last 3 years, I have successfully secured over £1.4M external funding in total (to Loughborough Univ.). These grants are mainly from Innovate UK, Newton Fund, EPSRC, KTP, NHS and a wide range of industry. Ongoing external grants are over £1.2M (PI & CoI). I lead the research team of 6 PDRAs and 7+ PhDs.
Recent funding obtained includes AI and bio-sensors for sleep breathing disorder diagnosis and rehabilitation (£540k), food manufacturing automation (£204K), AI for risk modelling in commodity supply chain (£206k), Automated Football Action Event Detection (IUK, total £359K), Air Quality Monitoring (Newton, total £470K), Agricultural Robot (IUK, £388K; Total £500k), Biofeedback for Amputee Gait" (EPSRC National Productivity Investment Fund, £78K), four EPSRC PhD CDT-EI projects sponsored by industry(£450K), Upper Limb MSK Rehabilitation funded NHS England Regional Innovation Fund (total £130K). These projects aim to develop novel algorithms and technology in AI, computer vision, machine learning, deep learning, robotics and intelligent systems. The developed technology will help to solve a number of theoretical and industrial challenges in real-world applications, e.g. machine understanding of human activity and behaviours, human movement analysis in sports, manufacturing automation, autonomous underwater vehicles, HCI, AI-assisted diagnosis and rehabilitation in healthcare, biofeedback and myoelectric control, agricultural robots, ambient intelligence, surveillance, sentiment analysis, business analysis, assistive living and digital document analysis etc.
Research Topics
- Human motion analysis
- Vision-based human and object detection and tracking
- Gesture and activity recognition
- Visual and wearable sensors
- Machine understanding of human behaviours
- Autonomous underwater robots
- Movement intention and musculoskeletal function analysis
- Driverless vehicles
- Embedded AI systems
- Machine vision and applications
- Robotics and autonomous systems
- Medical image processing
- Data-driven computer-aided disease diagnosis
- Data science, big data and data mining
- Intelligent systems
- Multi-modal sensor data fusion and IoT
Research Application
- Sports science
- Healthcare
- Industry 4.0
- Environmental protection
- Finance
- Agriculture
- Food manufacturing industry
- Biomechanics