About me

I am a PhD student at the Human-Centered Computing & Intelligent Sensing Lab (HiLab), Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), advised by Professor Yang Zhang.

My research sits at the intersection of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and sensing, focusing on how energy and information flow during physcial human-object interactions can enhance the context-awareness and ubiquity of computing systems. My work often involves a combination of hardware fabrication and software engineering, integrating electronics, computer vision and machine learning to create innovative solutions. I believe that techonology should be designed to simplify everyday life, while also enriching real-life experiences through enjoyable and meaningful interactions.

Feel free to email me if you are interested in my work, or if you would like to collaborate on a project! I am always open to new ideas and opportunities.

Research

LumosX: 3D Printed Anisotropic Light-Transfer

fabrication battery-free sensing

Qian Lu, Xiaoying Yang, Xue Wang, Jacob Sayono, Yang Zhang, and Jeeeun Kim (CHI 2025)

In Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI'25)

CubeSense++: Smart Environment Sensing with Interaction-Powered Corner Reflector Mechanisms

mmWave backscatter battery-free activity sensing

Xiaoying Yang, Jacob Sayono, Yang Zhang

In Proceedings of the 36th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST ’23)

Headar: Sensing Head Gestures for Confirmation Dialogs on Smartwatches with Wearable Millimeter-Wave Radar

mmWave machine learning gesture sensing

Xiaoying Yang, Xue Wang, Gaofeng Dong, Zihan Yan, Mani Srivastava, Eiji Hayashi, Yang Zhang

In Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies (IMWUT'23)

MiniKers: Interaction-Powered Smart Environment Automation

embedded systems energy harvesting home automation

Xiaoying Yang, Jacob Sayono, Jess Xu, Jiahao "Nick" Li, Josiah Hester, Yang Zhang

In Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies (IMWUT'22)

ForceSight: Non-Contact Force Sensing with Laser Speckle Imaging

computer vision novel sensing

Siyou Pei, Pradyumna Chari, Xue Wang, Xiaoying Yang, Achuta Kadambi, Yang Zhang

In Proceedings of the 35th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST ’22)

Posters, Extended Abstracts

Interaction-Power Stations: Turning Environments into Ubiquitous Power Stations for Charging Wearables

energy harvesting wireless power transfer

Xiaoying Yang, Yang Zhang

In Extended Abstracts of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing System

(CHI ’24 LBW)

CubeSense: Wireless, Battery-Free Interactivity through Low-Cost Corner Reflector Mechanisms

mmWave backscatter battery-free input interfaces

Xiaoying Yang, Yang Zhang

In Extended Abstracts of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

(CHI ’21 LBW)

Others

Vibration Sensing with Communication-Centric mmWave

joint communciation and sensing machine learning

Manuscript in preparation

NAO Robot Kicking Ball

robotics computer vision

Hands-on industrial project

Investigation of MPC Control Strategy for Autonomous Vehicles

robotics control

Hands-on industrial project

CV

My "HCI"

I am an HCI researcher by day, aiming to creat technologies that shape a better future. By night, I switch to a different kind of HCI — Human-Cat Interaction — where my furry supervisors set the agenda.

They are key contributors to both the breakthroughs and the breakdowns of my research — snoring their opinions into my zoom meetings, shutting down my computer with a single paw while I am on Overleaf, waking me up at 5am to make sure I never miss the AOE deadline, and chewing through my breadboard jumper wires for quality control. True collaborators.

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