Peng Hu
Dr. Peng Hu is an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Manitoba. He is also an Adjunct Professor at the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo, and a member of the Waterloo Data and AI Institute. He has years of R&D experience and has worked as a Research Officer at the National Research Council Canada (NRC).
Dr. Hu obtained his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Queen's University, Canada. He is a licensed Professional Engineer in Canada and a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). He serves as Associate Editor of the IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society, Secretary of the Satellite and Space Communications Technical Committee of the IEEE Communications Society, and Co-Chair of the Technology & Applications Working Group of the IEEE LEO Satellites & Systems Project. He has mentored/supervised 29+ students and research fellows at a high equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) standard. He has served as a PI/Co-PI of various research projects regarding AI/ML-enabled network systems, satellite networks, and the Internet of Things (IoT) supported by public funding sources, such as the NSERC, NRC, the Optical SatCom Consortium, Research Manitoba, Ontario Centre of Innovation (formerly OCE), and Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI). He has served as an Associate Editor for the IEEE Canadian Journal of Electrical and Computer Engineering, a member of the review committee of Canada's innovation and challenge programs, a reviewer for top research publications and conferences, a voting member of the IEEE Sensors Council Standards committee, a technology advisor/member of the well-known IoT industry consortia, and an organizing committee/TPC member of international conferences/workshops, including IEEE GLOBECOM, IEEE ICC, IEEE PIMRC, IEEE AINA, IEEE SysCon, IEEE Future Networks World Forum (FNWF), ACM COMPASS, etc.
His current research interests include:
Emerging Network & Embedded Systems: Space-Air-Ground Integrated Networks & Systems, Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTN), Protocols, Architecture, Management, Security, Resilience & Sustainability, and 5G/6G NTN.
Applied AI/Machine Learning: Autonomous Networking, Embedded AI, Edge AI/Computing, Anomaly Detection
Network Systems & Applications for Real-World and Societal Challenges
Recent News
[Nov. 2024]
I am deeply honored to be elected as the IEEE Winnipeg Section Chair for 2025–2026!
I am thrilled to be awarded the Research Manitoba Innovation Proof-of-Concept grant!
[Oct. 2024]
Our paper entitled "An Efficient and Generalizable Transfer Learning Method for Weather Condition Detection on Ground Terminals" was accepted by IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems!
I was so glad to have helped with the IEEEXtreme 2024 student competitions on Oct. 26th at the UM! Thanks for Prof. Ian Jeffrey's excellent organization!
IEEE FNWF - Symposium on Non-terrestrial Communications in Future Networks was successfully held on Oct. 15th in Dubai, UAE! Special thanks to Prof. Giovanni Giambene, Prof. Gunes Karabulut-Kurt, and all authors!
[Sep. 2024]
I'd like to welcome Xin, Justin, Muhammad, and Ken to join our research teams!
I am honoured to have served as the Applied Sciences Subcommittee Chair of the DRI EDIA (Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Accessibility ) Champions Program Merit Review Committee.
[Aug. 2024]
I am delighted to serve on the thesis committee for Bohan Zhang at the University of Waterloo, who successfully completed his Master's thesis presentation on "Mitigating Signalling Storms in 5G" on August 12th!
[Jul. 2024]
🛰️ 🏆 Congratulations to all the winners of the 2024 student competition on "Future 6G NTN Systems", supported by the IEEE ComSoc - Innovation Project!
Our survey paper on "UAV-Assisted Space-Air-Ground Integrated Networks: A Technical Review of Recent Learning Algorithms" has been accepted by the IEEE Open Journal of Vehicular Technology!
[Jun. 2024]
I am glad to have presented our paper entitled "Secure and Efficient Group Handover Protocol in 5G Non-Terrestrial Networks ", attended the IEEE ComSoc SSC TC meeting, and chaired the SSC session on AI for Satellite Communication and the 6GSatComNet Workshop session at IEEE ICC 2024 in Denver!
[May 2024]
A warm to my students Mana, Christian, and Xiang to be on board!
Call for Submissions: Challenge on “Future 6G NTN Systems” supported by the IEEE ComSoc – Innovation Project program, hosted by the Sixth International Conference on Communications, Signal Processing, and their Applications (ICCSPA’24). Visit https://2024.iccspa.org/comsoc-challenge/ for more details.
[Feb. - Apr. 2024]
Call for Free Participation: I am excited to announce the upcoming virtual workshop on "LEO Satellites & Systems and Space Environment" will take place on May 2nd, 2024, at 11 AM EDT (New York/Toronto time) and is open for free registration! (Workshop webpage: https://leosats.ieee.org/workshops/space-environment-workshop; Registration link: http://tiny.cc/leo-may2024)
Call for Papers: Satellite and Space Communications track, 2024 IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM), 8–12 Dec. 2024, Cape Town, South Africa. Submission link: https://edas.info/N31420
[Jan. 2024]
A warm to my student Yifan to be on board!
Our joint paper titled "Secure and Efficient Group Handover Protocol in 5G Non-Terrestrial Networks" was accepted by IEEE ICC 2024! (Acceptance rate < 40%)
Call for Papers: The 4th Workshop on Satellite Mega-Constellations in the 6G Era (6GSatComNet'24), held in conjunction with IEEE ICC 2024, 9–13 June 2024 // Denver, CO, USA. (Due on Feb 4th, 2024)
[Nov. 2023]
It was great to help with the successful workshop on the IEEE LEO Satellites & Systems “LEO Ground Stations and Ground Station Services” as a co-host on Nov. 30th!
Our collaborative paper titled "Free-Space Optical (FSO) Satellite Networks Performance Analysis: Transmission Power, Latency, and Outage Probability" was accepted by the IEEE Open Journal of Vehicular Technology!
[Sep./Oct. 2023]
A warm welcome to my student Vincent to be on board!
Our collaborative paper titled "Latency versus Transmission Power Trade-off in Free-Space Optical (FSO) Satellite Networks with Multiple Inter-Continental Connections" was published by the IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society!
I am so glad to give a keynote at the IEEE PIMRC 2023 Special Session on "The Role of Non-terrestrial Networks on 6G Communications: State-of-the-Art and Challenges" on September 6th, 2023.
Our previous research on ML for satellite anomaly detection has been reported by the University of Waterloo News!
Previous News
[Aug. 2023]
I will be delighted to serve as the Satellite & Space Communications SAC Co-Chair at IEEE GLOBECOM 2024, 8-12 December 2024, Cape Town!
I am pleased to serve as the TPC member for the Satellite & Space Communications track, at the IEEE ComSoc's flagship conference - IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC), 9-13 June 2024, Denver, USA.
[Jul. 2023]
I am pleased to be a speaker and panelist at the IEEE PIMRC 2023 special session on "The Role of Non-terrestrial Networks on 6G Communications: State-of-the-Art and Challenges", taking place 5–8 September 2023, Toronto, Canada!
Our paper titled "HAPS-UAV-Enabled Heterogeneous Networks: A Deep Reinforcement Learning Approach" was accepted by the IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society!
[Jun. 2023]
I am glad to be awarded the NRC's Inventor Fixed Milestone Awards three years in a row from 2021 to 2023!
Our paper titled "Multivariate Variance-Based Genetic Ensemble Learning for Satellite Anomaly Detection" was accepted by the IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology!
[May 2023]
A warm welcome to Albert Ding joining the team as a graduate co-op student from the U. Waterloo!
I am very glad to serve as the Associate Editor for the IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society!
[Apr. 2023]
I will gladly serve as the Session Chair of the Next Generation Satellite Communications session in the Satellite & Space Communications track at IEEE ICC 2023!
Our paper titled "Routing Heterogeneous Traffic in Delay-Tolerant Satellite Networks" was published in the IEEE Journal of Radio Frequency Identification!
[Mar. 2023]
I am delighted to serve as the Session Chair of EMT15: Satellite Communications at IEEE WCNC 2023 in Glasgow, UK!
I am glad to serve as the TPC member for the IEEE GLOBECOM 2023 e-Health track!
[Feb. 2023]
Our paper titled "Broadband Connectivity for Handheld Devices via LEO Satellites: Is Distributed Massive MIMO the Answer?" was accepted by the IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society!
I am delighted to serve as the Virtual Conference Co-Chair of ACM COMPASS 2023 - Computing and Sustainable Societies, August 16-19, 2023, Cape Town, South Africa!
[Jan. 2023]
Our paper titled "Satellite Anomaly Detection Using Variance Based Genetic Ensemble of Neural Networks" was accepted by IEEE ICC 2023, the IEEE ComSoc's flagship conference!
[Dec. 2022]
My paper titled "SatAIOps: Revamping the Full Life-Cycle Satellite Network Operations" was accepted by a top-ranked conference in network management, IEEE NOMS 2023 in its 36th edition! (Acceptance rate < 21%, 32 out of 153 papers were selected.)
Our two papers titled "A Cross-Layer Descent Approach for Resilient Network Operations of Proliferated LEO Satellites" and "Laser Inter-Satellite Link Setup Delay: Quantification, Impact, and Tolerable Value" were accepted by the IEEE WCNC 2023, one of the premier annual events of IEEE in the wireless research!
[Oct. 2022]
My paper titled "Enabling Resilient and Real-Time Network Operations in Space: A Novel Multi-Layer Satellite Networking Scheme" was accepted by IEEE LATINCOM 2022, the most important conference in communications in Latin America!
Student Vacancies
I currently have positions for graduate students:
Fall 2025 intake: Ph.D. and Master's students, Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Manitoba.
Fall 2025 intake: MMath in Computational Mathematics, University of Waterloo.
Interested students are encouraged to contact me directly with (1) a CV (including educational background, research/industry experience, and publications if applicable), (2) a cover letter (stating your research interests and experience), and (3) copies of transcripts. Please understand that only students who can be a good fit will be contacted.
Suitable Background of Prospective Students
Students are generally expected to have self-motivated problem-solving skills and a commitment to a high standard of ethics (please see IEEE Code of Ethics and ACM Code of Ethics). In addition to the University graduate program's requirements, students are not required to have domain knowledge of specific research projects but are expected to have a relevant background in engineering/science fields with good experience in the areas of (1) data communication/networks, (2) embedded/accelerator systems, (3) ML or computer vision with data analytics and programming skills (in C/C++ and Python), or (4) optimization. Experience in multiple areas with practical experience is considered an asset.
I strive to offer successful training with a solid commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) to students and access to advanced platforms for studies and academic/industry jobs. Students will have opportunities to be supported to publish, attend well-ranked academic events, and interact with leading research/industry communities.
EDI Resources
With a commitment to a high standard of EDI for mentorship, Prof. Hu's team, including students and research fellows, are encouraged to get EDI training from the University's Equity Office and NSERC. EDI resources will be introduced to students at the pre-research discussion.
Media Mentions
[Oct. 2024] "Research Manitoba invests over $740K for Innovation Proof of Concept grants", Research Manitoba news.
[Sep. 2023] "Using machine learning to close Canada’s digital divide - Researchers use AI to detect potential problems with satellites before they happen", University of Waterloo news.
[Dec. 2022] Internet Society's Fellowship Symposium presentation: "Rights and Responsibilities of Internet Service Providers and Platforms: A Study of Surveillance, Resilience, and Digital Content." https://www.linkedin.com/posts/internet-society_meet-more-of-our-2022-mid-career-fellows-activity-6986767256634478592-zD8A/?originalSubdomain=ug
[Dec. 2022] Waterloo and NRC celebrate the opening of innovation hub: https://uwaterloo.ca/research/news/waterloo-and-nrc-celebrate-opening-innovation-hub
[Dec. 2021] Waterloo and NRC reaffirm partnership on future-facing technology: https://uwaterloo.ca/news/university-relations/waterloo-and-nrc-reaffirm-partnership-future-facing
[Nov. 2020] Waterloo Mathematics: using ML technologies to improve internet access for remote & rural communities in Canada... https://twitter.com/waterloomath/status/1332018788707942402
[Aug. 2018] Carleton University: Talk by Prof. Peng Hu – From Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks to Industrial Internet of Things: Some Network Architectural Challenges: https://carleton.ca/internetofthings/cu-events/from-industrial-wireless-sensor-networks-to-industrial-internet-of-things-some-network-architectural-challenges/
[Nov. 2015] Wireless Technology Feature: Managing risk in the nuclear industry. Canadian Electronics. 2015.
Research
Prof. Hu has active research programs/projects about IoT and network systems. He has accomplished research projects including IoT, satellite networks, AI/ML-enabled network systems, and cybersecurity, embedded and sensors systems in collaboration with academic and industry partners. More info
Authorship
Prof. Hu has been an author, co-author, and senior author in leading publication venues. See the Google Scholar profile for more info.
Teaching
Prof. Hu has taught Computer Science and Engineering courses, and authored online courses on Satellite Internet, IoT Foundations, Networking, and Embedded Operating Systems. More info.
Last edited: Oct 1, 2024