Yu Xiao

I am broadly interested in experimental systems research in the field of mobile computing. My research interests have spanned from energy-efficient mobile computing, to edge computing, to mobile crowdsensing and to industrial internet. My research often takes the approach of building potentially large-scale prototype systems and then evaluating them experimentally. My current work contains two parts. One is creating innovative mobile applications to solve real life problems such as indoor mapping and cognitive assistance for mechanical assembly and maintenance. The other part of my research focuses on solving the performance, energy-efficiency and scalability challenges that the new applications (e.g. video crowdsourcing, autonomous driving) pose to the cloud and network architectures.

Ongoing Projects

1) Reality Capture for Construction Management, funded by Tekes, October 2017 - September 2019 (joint work with department of civil engineering) Keywords: 3D modelling, laser scanning, building information model, object recognition, augmented reality 2) Intelligent Construction Site, funded by Tekes, October 2016 - September 2018 Keywords: indoor tracking, mobile sensing 3) EIT HII Active - Advanced Connectivity Platform for Vertical Segments. September 2017 - December 2017. Keywords: low-latency, wearable computing, edge computing

Completed Projects

1) Scientific Advisor, Mobile Crowdsensing in Ubiqutious Cloud Environment, funded by Academy of Finland (Grant number: 277498), September 2014–August 2017 Keywords: crowdsensing, edge computing, indoor mapping and navigation, analytics 2) Co-PI and technical lead, Image-based Indoor Product Navigation System, funded by Tekes: New Knowledge and Business from Research Ideas, August 2016 - May 2017 Keywords: indoor mapping, navigation Our latest demo (March 2017) of AR navigation in a supermarket is here. We have founded VimAI Oy to commercialize our vision-based indoor mapping and augmented intelligence solutions. 3) PI, Collaborative Optimization for Networking Performance in Ubiquitous Cloud Computing, funded by Academy of Finland (Grant number: 268096), September 2013 – March 2017 Keywords: edge computing, network performance, measurement and analysis, optimization

Postdocs

Giancarlo Pastor, 2017.09 - , fog/edge computing, compressed sensing, reinforcement learning

Doctoral students

• Peter Byvshev (Aalto/COMNET), 2017.12- , video event recognition
• Truong-an Pham (Aalto/COMNET), 2017.05 - , wearable cognitive assistance for mechanical assmebly and maintenance
• Marius Noreikis (Aalto/COMNET), 2016.05 -, resource-efficient augmented reality navigation for indoor environment
• Chao Zhu (Aalto/CS, co-supervising with Prof. Antti Ylä-Jääski), 2016.10 -, Vehicular fog computing
• Jiang Dong (Aalto/CS), 2012.10 - 2017.06 , towards efficient and sustainable mobile crowdsensing

Visiting Scholars

• Dr. Yuki Sato, Keio University, Japan. 2017.09 - 2018.06. Hand gesture recognition, RFID mapping.
• Professor Yong Li, Tsinghua University, China. 2017.07

Interns

• Year 2018: Xuebing Li, Rong Xie
• Year 2017: Tufail Muhammad, Jouni Ojala, Jonathan Granskog, Seyoung Park, Jiyao Hu

Courses

• ELEC-E7320 Internet Protocols (5ETCS). Period III-IV. Spring 2017.
• CSE-E5440 Energy-efficient Mobile Computing (5 ECTS). Period V. Spring 2016.
• T-110.5121 Mobile Cloud Computing(5ECTS). Autumn 2015.
• CSE-E5440 Energy-efficint mobile computing(5 ECTS). Period V. Spring 2015.
• T-110.6120 Energy-efficient mobile computing(5 ECTS). Period V. Spring 2014.

Papers under review (except double-blind)

• Xie, R., Chen, Y., Xie, Q., Xiao, Y., and Wang, X. We Know Your Preferences in New Cities: Mining and Modeling the Behavior of Travelers. Major revision in IEEE Communications Magazine.
• Yang, J., Mirjafari, S., Shi, B., Xiao, Y., Hui, P. VIMES: A Wearable Memory Assistance System for Automatic Information Retrieval. Major revision in IEEE Transactions on Multimedia.
• Dong,J., Xiao, Y., Noreikis, M., Cui, Y., and Ylä-Jääski,A. Powering Sustainable Indoor Mapping and Navigation with Mobile Crowdsensing. submitted to IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing.
• Chen, Y., Hu, J., Zhang, H., Xiao, Y., Hui, P. Measurement and Analysis of the Swarm Social Network with Tens of Millions of Nodes. submitted to IEEE Access.
• Pham, T., Xiao, Y., Unsupervised Workflow Extraction from First-person Video of Mechanical Assembly. submitted to ACM HotMobile'2018.

Most recent journal/conference papers:

• X. Huang, Yong Li, Y. Wang, Y. Xiao, L. Zhang. CTS: A Cellular-based Trajectory Tracking System with GPS-level Accuracy, accepted by ACM IMWUT.
• W. Feng, Z. Yan, H. Zhang, K. Zeng, Y. Xiao and Y. T. Hou, "A Survey on Security, Privacy and Trust in Mobile Crowdsourcing," in IEEE Internet of Things Journal, vol. PP, no. 99, pp. 1-1. Oct 2017. doi: 10.1109/JIOT.2017.2765699
• Marius Noreikis, Yu Xiao, and Antti Ylä-Jääski. 2017. SeeNav: Seamless and Energy-Efficient Indoor Navigation using Augmented Reality. In Proceedings of the Thematic Workshops of ACM Multimedia 2017 (Thematic Workshops '17). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 186-193. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3126686.3126733
• Noreikis, M., Xiao, Y., and Ylä-Jääski, A. "QoS-oriented Capacity Planning for Edge Computing". IEEE ICC'17. (camera-ready version).
• Xiao, Y., Zhu, C. Vehicular Fog Computing: Vision and Challenges. IEEE Percom'17 Work-in-Progress Session. (camera-ready version).
• Dong,J., Xiao, Y., Cui, Y., Ou, z, and Ylä-Jääski, A. "Indoor Tracking using Crowdsourced Maps". ACM/IEEE IPSN'16. (acceptance rate: 19.7%). Here is our demo video.
• Zhu, C., Xiao, Yu., Cui, Y., Yang, Z., Xiao, S., and Ylä-Jääski, A. "Dynamic Flow Consolidation for Energy Savings in Green DCNs". IEEE IPCCC 2015. Dec 14-16, 2015. (Best Paper Award)
• Hoque, M., Siekkinen, M., Khan, K., Xiao, Y., and Tarkoma, S. "Modeling, Profiling, and Debugging the Energy Consumption of Mobile Devices". ACM Computing Surveys. vol 48, issue 3, article 39 (December 2015), 40 pages.
• Dong, J., Xiao, Y., Marius, N., Ou, Z., and Ylä-Jääski, A. "iMoon: Using Smartphones for Image-based Indoor Navigation". ACM SenSys 2015 (acceptance rate: 20%)
• Vilen, L., Ou, Z., Xiao,Y., and Ylä-Jääski, A. "The Great Expectations of Smartphone Traffic Scheduling". ISCC 2015.
• Dong, J., Xiao, Y., Ou, Z., and Ylä-Jääski, A. "Utilizing Internet Photos for Indoor Mapping and Localization - Opportunities and Challenges". accepted by the First International Workshop on Smart Cities and Urban Informatics 2015 (SmartCity 2015), co-located with Infocom 2015.
  
• Dong, J., Xiao, Y., and Ylä-Jääski, A. "Exploring the Potential of Indoor Mapping and Localization Using Internet Photos". presented in Poster Session, HotMobile 2015.
• Satyanarayanan, M., Simoens, P., Xiao,Y., and et al. "Edge Analytics in the Interent of Things". Invited paper. IEEE Pervasive Computing. April-June 2015. 8 pages.
• Kämäräinen, T., Siekkinen, M., Xiao, Y., and Ylä-Jääski, A. "Towards Pervasive and Mobile Gaming with Distributed Cloud Infrastructure". NetGames 2014. (Slides)
• Xiao, Y., Cui, Y., Savolainen, P., Siekkinen M., Wang A., Yang, L., Ylä-Jääski A. and Tarkoma S. "Modeling Energy Consumption of Data Transmission over Wi-Fi" (Preprint version). Accepted by IEEE Transaction on Mobile Computing. 2013.
• Simoens, P., Xiao, Y., Pillai, P., Chen, Z., Ha, K., Satyanarayanan, M. "Scalable Crowd-Sourcing of Video from Mobile Devices"(submission version). ACM Mobisys 2013 (acceptance rate: 16%), Taipei, Taiwan, June 25-28, 2013.
• Ding, Y., Han, B., Xiao, Y., Hui, P., Srinivasan A., Kojo M., and Tarkoma S. "Enabling Energy-aware Collaborative Mobile Data Offloading for Smartphones". IEEE Secon 2013, New Orleans, USA, June 24-27, 2013.
• Xiao, Y., Simoens, P., Pillai, P., Ha, K., Satyanarayanan, M. "Lowering the Barriers to Large-Scale Mobile Crowdsensing" (submission version) , in Proceedings of the 14th International Workshop on Mobile Computing Systems and Applications (ACM HotMobile 2013), February 2013, Jekyll Island, GA.

Books

Tarkoma, S., Siekkinen M., Lagerspetz, E., and Xiao, Y. "Smartphone energy consumption: modelling and optimization". Cambridge University Press. September 2014. ISBN: 9781107042339.

Software

1. Crowdsourced Indoor Mapping, Localization and Navigation A demo video of our image-based indoor mapping, localization and navigation system is now available on YouTube. Link Our system builds 3D models of indoor environment from unordered 2D images using Structure-from-Motion(SfM) techniques, detects pedestrian paths from smartphone sensor data, and extracts place information from images. Our system includes an Android client and an app server. With the client, users can locate themselves by taking photos from where they are, can search for places by descriptions or images, and can be guided to destinations with textual and visual information.
2. Gigasight: Crowdsourcing of videos from mobile devices (source code is available on GitHub) I participated the design and development of Gigasight during my research visit to Carnegie Mellon University in year 2012. This work was published in Mobisys 2013.
3. Integration of pervasive public display networks and distributed cloudlet infrastructure It is a joint work with Lancaster University during my research visit to Carnegie Mellon University in year 2013. Key techniques: Qemu/KVM, Internet suspend/resume, Node.js + MySql
4. Tools for energy-efficiency analysis SmartDiet is a proof-of-concept toolkit for analyzing energy usage of Android applications and identifying constraints regarding mobile code offloading. It was mostly written by Aki Saarinen and the source code is available on GitHub. We made a demo of SmartDiet at Sigcomm 2012.
   

CURRICULUM VITAE

Degrees I have received

Doctor of Science (Technology) in computer science, Aalto University School of Science (formerly Helsinki University of Technology), Finland, January 2012. Thesis: Modeling and Managing Energy Consumption of Mobile Devices (Grade: Pass with distinction)

   Supervisor: Prof. Antti Ylä-Jääski

   Instructor: Dr. Matti Siekkinen

   Opponent: Prof. Jon Crowcroft (Cambridge University)

Master of Science in computer science, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (BUPT), China, April 2007. Supervisor: Prof. Huadong Ma

Bachelor of Science in computer science, BUPT, China, September 2004.

Pedagogical training

• 11.2016 - 01.2017 Providing and Utilizing Feedback (3cr)
• 08.2016 - 10.2016. Course Design (5cr)
• 03.2016 - 05.2016. Learning and teaching in higher education (5cr)
• 01.2014 - 03.2014. Compiling a teaching porfolio (3 cr)
• 10.2013 - 12.2013, A! Peda Intro (5 cr). Part of Aalto University pedagogical development programme.

Other training

• 16.11.2017 Leading and enginging people for academic leaders
• 6.10.2017 Providing direction & managing effectively for academic leaders
• 5.9.2017, 26.10.2017 Training for Doctoral Dissertation Supervisors
• 29-30.11.2016 Project Management 2
• 17.11.2016 Feedback, Ethics and Personal Data in Research Projects
• 10.3.2016 How to sell your research or ideas
• 22-23.10.2015 Project Management 1
• 13.10.2015, How to commercialize the knowledge
• 21.4.2015 IPR, Contracts and Commertialization Training
• 16.4.2015 Aalto Practices in Project Management
• 09.2008 - 05.2009, International Business Linkage Programme, Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, Helsinki University of Technology. (This programme has been transformed into a master's programme in Strategy)

Research Visits

(I also regularly visit Prof. Pan Hui at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and Prof. Cui Yong at Tsinghua University)

19.9.2016 - 7.10.2016, Fudan University, School of Computer Science, Hosted by Prof. Yang Chen

6.9.2016 - 18.9.2016, Tsinghua University, Hosted by Prof. Yong Cui

05.2012 - 06.2013, Carnegie Mellon University(CMU), School of Computer Science, Elijah (cloudlet) Project. Worked for Prof. Mahadev Satyanarayanan

    "A cloudlet is a new architectural element that arises from the convergence of mobile computing and cloud computing.  It represents the middle tier of a 3-tier hierarchy: mobile device-cloudlet-cloud. " 

Developing methodology and techniques of scalable mobile crowdsourcing Providing a flexible approach to display and application placement by combining pervasive public display networks with distributed cloudlets Simoens, P., Xiao, Y., Pillai, P., Chen, Z., Ha, K., Satyanarayanan, M. "Scalable Crowd-Sourcing of Video from Mobile Devices"(submission version). ACM Mobisys 2013, Taipei, Taiwan, June 25-28, 2013.

Xiao, Y., Simoens, P., Pillai, P., Ha, K., Satyanarayanan, M. "Lowering the Barriers to Large-Scale Mobile Crowdsensing" (submission version) , in Proceedings of the 14th International Workshop on Mobile Computing Systems and Applications (ACM HotMobile 2013), February 2013, Jekyll Island, GA.

A demo: "Move Closer: The Benefits of A Flexible Approach to Display and Application placement" was shown in the demo session of the International Symposium on Pervasive Display (PerDis 2013), Mountain View, California, June 4-5, 2013.

09.2011 - 11.2011, Nanyang Technological University / Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology, Future Urban Mobility Project (http://smart.mit.edu/research/future-urban-mobility/future-urban-mobility.html )

Participated in the development of a smartphone-based public transportation survey system Responsible for analyzing the sensing information collected from smartphones and converting them into user trajectories and mode of transportation A demo was made at CCNC 2012. More information can be found from:

Xiao, Y., Low, D. and et al. Transport Activity Analysis Using Smartphones. CCNC 2012. Demo Session.

01.2011- 04.2011, Deutsche Telekom Laboratories (Germany), Mobile Cloud Computing Project. Worked with Prof. Pan Hui

Cloud-assisted power management for mobile devices: power management as a cloud service and collaborative power management between mobile phones Energy-efficiency analysis of computation offloading at development stage

Internship

04.2006 - 12.2006, Microsoft China R&D Center, Office 2007 Project

07.2005 - 03.2006, Intel China Research Center, Intelligent platform management project

Awards

• 2017. Young Researcher Award. Finnish Foundation for Technology Promotion.
• Best Paper Award, the 34th IEEE International Performance Computing and Communications Conference (IPCCC'15)
• 09.2013 - 8.2016, Postdoc Researcher Grant, Academy of Finland
• Best Paper Award, the 1st International Conference on Energy-efficient Computing and Networking (E-Energy'10), ACM, April 2010.
• Best Paper Award, the 3rd International Conference on Mobile Ubiquitous Computing, Systems, Services and Technologies (UBICOMM'09), IEEE, October 2009.
• 09.2008-12.2011, Helsinki Graduate School of Computer Science (Hecse) scholarship
• 2010, Nokia Foundation Scholarship.
• 2009, Nokia Foundation Scholarship.

Master theses/Final projects I have instructed

• Theodosios Makris. Measuring and Analyzing Energy Consumption of the Data Center. 2017.
• Maneesh Chauhan. Measurement and Analysis of Networking Performance in Virtualized Environment. 2014.
• Marius Noreikis. Image-based indoor navigation. 2014.
• Wei Li. Event-driven resource management for mobile devices. 2011.
• Mohammad Khaled Hasan Chowdhury. Traffic-aware Network Interface Control for Energy-efficiency in Wireless Data Transmission. 2010.
• Jiawei Chen. Energy-Efficient BitTorrent Client for Mobile Platform. 2010.
• Vilen Looga. Traffic Scheduling for Energy-efficient Network Transmission on Mobile Devices. 2010.
• Rijubrata Bhaumik. Power Modeling of Mobile Applications Using Hardware Performance Counters. 2009.
• José Raúl Benito Sanz. Power measurement and analysis of mobile instant communications in 802.11g. 2009.
• Francisco J. Casasús Acevedo. Energy-efficient Adaptation for Mobile Video Streaming in WLAN. 2009.
• Aldara de Castro Báez. Energy Awareness in Email Services with Mobile Clients. 2009.
• Vinod Hegde. Application Classification on Mobile Devices for Reducing the Power Consumption. 2008.

Bachelor theses I have supervised/instructed

• Tuomo Kivekäs. A survey on services and applications for connected vehicles. 2017. Aalto/Comnet.
• Paavo Pärssinen. A survey on infrastructure-free indoor localization techniques. 2017. Aalto/Comnet.
• Jukka Laakko. Vehicular fog computing. 2017. Aalto/Comnet
• Jesse Nieminen. A survey on AR systems and applications. 2017. Aalto/Comnet
• Jasse Lahdenperä. Floor plan reconstruction from 3D point cloud. 2016. Aalto/CS
• Markus Murhu. A web-based augmented reality content editor. 2016. Aalto/CS
• Sten Hägglund. A Google Glasses application for indoor navigation. 2015. Aalto/CS

Professional Services(from Year 2014)

• Co-organizer of DACSC 2017
• TPC member of ICDCS 2018, ICC 2018/2017, WCNC 2018, Globecom 2017, CrowdSense 2017, IEEE SEC 2016(The first IEEE Symposium on Edge Computing), IEEE Ubicomm 2014
• Reviewers for IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, IEEE Transactions on Cloud Computing, IEEE Internet of things, IEEE Communications Magazine, Elsevier Pervasive and Mobile Computing, IEEE Systems Journal, IEEE Transactions on Vehicle Technlogy, Sensors, Simulation Modelling Practice and Theory, International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks, IEEE WowMom 2014, IEEE CCNC 2014
• Panelist of IEEE SEC 2016

Invited Talks

28.9.2017. Edge-powered mobile augmented reality applications. Mobile networking, analytics and edge computing workshop 2017. Munich, Germany.

16.6.2017. Academic views on indoor positioning. Kone expert forum

7.11.2016 Crowdsourced indoor mapping and navigation. Carnegie Mellon University

31.10.2016 Crowdsourced indoor mapping and navigation. Arizona State University.

21.9.2016 Scalable Mobile Crowdsensing in Ubiquitous Cloud Environment, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

9.9.2016 Scalable Mobile Crowdsensing in Ubiquitous Cloud Environment, State Key Laboratory of Networking and Switching Technology, Beijing, China.

28.7.2016 Crowdsourced indoor mapping and navigation. Helsinki-HKUST-Tsinghua workshop on mobile services and edge computing. Helsinki.

30.5.2016 Green datacenter networks CleanSky Summer School 2016. Helsinki.

6.11.2015 Ubiquitous cloud computing for scalable mobile crowdsensing. Laboratory for Communication Networks. KTH.