The Guangdong provincial government has recently funded three natural science research projects designed by UIC students from the Division of Science and Technology.
The fund is specially set up to encourage and nurture university student teams in Guangdong to carry out cutting-edge and ground-breaking research on technology innovation.
Teams are selected every year and categorised into three types: Technological Inventions and Productions, Natural Science Research, Philosophy and Social Science Research and Papers.
Peng Yawei is a third-year Statistics student, and she is the project leader of "Design and Research of High-speed Coherent Optical Dynamic Joint Carrier Recovery Algorithm Based on H∞ Filtering".
Peng Yawei and her team: Zhang Jinwei, Peng Yawei, Liu Xinhui (from left)
According to Yawei, her team project aims to estimate and compensate for the carrier phase shift and laser phase noise in the transmission systems of high-speed coherent light in real-time dynamically, based on Bayesian estimation.
She said that she had realised the importance of teamwork through this project. She had not only received insightful guidance from Dr Du Xinwei, the project instructor, but also learned a lot from her teammates' expertise.
"Confronting challenges and experiencing new things is good for knowledge gathering and research skills improving," said Yawei.
The next awarded project is "A Blind Estimation Algorithms Study on Carrier Frequency Offset in Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing Systems Based on the Neyman-Pearson Test", led by Xu Yangfan, a second-year Statistics student.
Xu Yangfan and his team: Zhang Lingshuo, Wu Fan, Xu Yangfan (from left)
Yangfan introduced that their team project is based on CO-OFDM systems, combined with statistical methods to develop estimates of frequency carrier offsets in transmission systems.
Yangfan was impressed by his teammates' professionalism and grateful to Dr Du Xinwei's contribution to the team, who often stayed up late with them to modify the project.
He concluded that passion, communication and reading were key for research, keeping one's mind fresh and open.
The last funded project is led by Liu Yingxin, a third-year Statistics student.
Liu Yingxin (middle) and Dr Timothy Wu (right)
Her team's project is "Joint Optimisation of Privacy and Communication Cost for Federated Learning in IoT". It intends to improve the training method for federated learning by jointly optimising training time and privacy protection.
Yingxin had no experience in writing complex code before, and she appreciated her instructor, Dr Timothy Wu and teammates very much, who were always there to support her whenever she felt stuck or stressed. And thankfully, things went perfectly.
"Sharing thoughts with instructors will inspire new thoughts," Yingxin suggested. "Reading essays, especially those published in top journals, is vital for scientific research."
Dr Timothy Wu said that doing scientific research is challenging for undergraduates because it requires lots of time and effort. However, students should adjust themselves and remember that the outcome may not be the most important thing as long as they learn something from the process.
Dr Du Xinwei was moved by students' passion when they prepared their projects, but some may feel jammed when trying to develop innovative solutions. She explained that offering new solutions might be the highest barrier in scientific research, and one should learn to combine theory with practice.
Strategies to support the development of science and technology are being continuously strengthened within the nation, and UICers are heading firmly towards the peak of innovation.
From MPRO
Reporter: Cecilia Yu
Photos provided by the interviewee
Editors: Deen He
