Dr Xiyu Shi

Dr Xiyu Shi is a Senior Lecturer in Digital Technologies and the Programme Director for MSc Digital Innovation Management in the Institute for Digital Technologies (IDT). He joined Loughborough University London first as a Research Fellow in October 2014 and then was appointed as a Lecturer in Digital Technology in October 2017.

He is a leading researcher and consultant with specialist knowledge of digital signal processing, communication networks, cybersecurity and machine learning. Since 2000, he has been a major contributor to several high-profile international collaboration projects which have shaped the future of networked media. These projects, including CLOUDSCREEN, BATS, ROMEO, DIOMEDES, BROADWAN, FullSpeed, EMBRACE, Guardian Angel, and Secure Voice, were funded by the EU’s FP5/6/7 programmes, EPSRC and the industry. His work in these projects focused on the development and implementation of algorithms for voice/audio coding, multimedia networking and security over fixed and wireless communication systems.

Since assumed the duties as a lecturer and senior lecturer in digital technologies, he has led and/or contributed significantly to the curriculum development of MSc Digital Design Innovation, MSc Cyber Security and Data Analytics, MSc Mobile Communication Systems, and MSc Digital Creative Media. He is the module leader for Applied Cryptography, Information System Security, Internet of Things and Applications, Advanced 3D Media Environments, and Introduction to Digital Technologies. His teaching portfolio also includes Multimedia Over Networks, Media Processing, and Digital Technologies for Market Analysis.

His research interests include privacy, cybersecurity, explainable AI, deep learning and voice/audio signal processing. As Co-Investigator (CI), he is the recipient of one EPSRC grant in the area of post-quantum user privacy protection for future self-managed digital healthcare services, and an industry grant in immersive voice and audio coding for 5G mobile communication systems. In close collaboration with industry partners, his PGR team works in deep machine learning algorithms and their engineering applications, specifically in explainable AI, generative adversarial network, and multi-agent reinforcement learning with applications in cyber security, communication systems, and autonomous driving.

He is the Programme Director for the following MSc programmes in Loughborough University London:

• Digital Innovation Management MSc (09/2022 – to date)
• Digital Design Innovation MSc (10/2018 – 09/2020)
• Mobile Communication Systems MSc (10/2017 – 09/2018)

Academic background

Xiyu received a BEng in Radio Engineering from Southeast University, China, in 1984, an MSc in Communication and Electronic Systems from Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, China, in 1989, and a PhD in Computer Science from the Royal Military College of Science, Cranfield University in 2002. Xiyu was also a visiting researcher at the Advanced Communication Unit of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Science and Technology Facilities Council, from 1998-2002.

Before he moved to the UK in 1998, Xiyu was a Lecturer and an Associate Professor in Electronic Engineering with more than 10 years teaching experience in the School of Information and Control Engineering, University of Petroleum of China.

Xiyu is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. He was a Visiting Lecturer to University of Buckingham in 2021 and a Guest Lecturer of Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, China in 2022.

Current research and collaborations

Funded research project

• Happier Feet - Disrupting the vicious cycle of healthcare decline in Diabetic Foot Ulceration through active prevention: The future of self-managed care. Co-Investigator. Funded by EPSRC, 09/2021 – 08/2023.
• IVAS - Immersive Voice and Audio Service for 5G mobile communication systems. Co-Investigator. Funded by an industry partner in mobile communication, 11/2018 – 05/2020.

Collaborations

• Communication University of China, China
• Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, China
• Harbin Engineering University, China
• Harbin University of Science and Technology, China

Current PhD / research supervisions

• Eyad Alsaghir: Exploring the feature-weights relation in training for fast model selection in complex multi-domain convolutional neural networks. 10/2019 – 06/2023 (Intended Thesis Submission). Principal supervisor.
• Haonan Pan: Multi-agent reinforcement learning in unknown and uncertain environments for smart mobility. 10/2022 – 09/2025. Principal supervisor.
• Ziyu Mu: XAI for interpretability, transparency, and traceability of autonomous driving technologies. 10/2022 – 09/2025. Principal supervisor.
• Yuankun Chen: Human-machine interface in smart mobility. 01/2023 – 12/2025. Principal supervisor.
• Yisheng Pei - Deep generative modelling of event and tracking data in football for probabilistic tactical analysis. 01/2021 – 12/2013. Co-supervisor.
• Haohan Shi: Neuro-symbolic signal processing in scalable artificial intelligent systems. 10/2021 – 09/2024. Co-supervisor.
• Chaoyi Gu - Multimodal Imitation learning for Football player modelling. 10/2020-10/2023. Co-supervisor.
• Ying Feng: Experiementalisation and theorisation of digital agency in web-based communication. 10/2020 – 09/2023. Co-supervisor.
• Corentin Artaud: Efficient Architectures for Explainable Hierarchical Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning. 10/2021 – 09/2024. Co-supervisor

Completed PhD / research supervisions

• Haylat Tibebu: Multimodal Scene Representation Learning for Localization of Driverless Vehicles, 10/2018 – 02/2023. (Co-supervisor)
• Dr Solomon Osei: A Cross Platform Big Data Security Framework - Leveraging Artificial Intelligence and Knowledge Engineering to Secure Big Data. Loughborough University, 01/2015 – 12/2019. (Co-supervisor)
• Dr Areeb Riaz: Adaptive Blind Source Separation Based on Intensity Vector Statistics. University of Surrey, 09/2011 - 10/2014. (Co-supervisor)
• Dr Ikhwana Elfitri. Analysis by Synthesis Spatial Audio Coding. University of Surrey, 01/2010 - 02/2013. (Co-supervisor)

Areas of research expertise

• Explainable AI – building deep convolutional neural networks for complex multi-domain ML problems to: a) investigate and understand the dilated mathematical relationship between the features of the input and the learned parameters of the networks; b) to explain and visualise how information is transferred between different components of the networks; and c) to use the relationship and information transfer in improving the learning performance of neural networks.
• Deep generative models – Using deep neural networks such as Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN) to learn and model a distribution which is as similar as possible to the true data distribution to generate new data points. Current research includes: a) using un/conditional GANs for voice/audio inpainting where gaps of voice/audio in archives or error-prone communication channels could be restored; and b) using conditional transformer GAN (ContraGAN) to identify zero day ex-filtration cyber-attacks.
• Cyber security – using advanced cryptographic algorithms and security protocols for future-proof privacy protection, cybersecurity and post-quantum cryptography (PQC); using AI, multi-agent reinforcement learning and collaborative learning for the enhancement of information systems security, particularly in detection of anomaly and zero-day attacks.

Xiyu is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA), a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (SMIEEE), and a Member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (MIET).

He is the representative of Loughborough London in the High-Performance Computing (HPC) Stakeholder Sub Committee of Loughborough University.

He is also a Member of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Committee of Loughborough University London.

Professional activities

• Invited peer-reviewer of proposals for the UKRI ESRC Digital Society Network Plus call 2022
• Independent End Point Assessor and Visiting Lecturer to University Buckingham, UK (01/2021 – 12/2021)
• Foreign Expert of Summer Lecturer Programme 2022, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, China
• Overseas Academic Adviser to MSc Digital Media Systems, Communication University of China

Journal reviewer

• Springer Journal of Artificial Intelligence Review
• IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics
• IEEE Access
• Elsevier Journal of Digital Signal Processing
• IET Electronics Letters
• MDPI Journal of Actuators
• MDPI Journal of Applied Science
• MDPI Journal of Electronics
• MDPI Journal of Energies
• MDPI Journal of Sensors
• MDPI Journal of World Electric Vehicles