Dr Zhihua Lai

Profile

Dr Zhihua Lai

Dr Zhihua Lai obtained his PhD on Wireless Propagation Modelling at University of Bedfordshire in June, 2010 (aged 25). He obtained his first computer when he was aged 13. At that time, he was addicted to DOS, Logo, and Foxbase 2.1 but, after he was given a book on 'Pascal', he fell in love with programming.

In high school, he participated in Information Olympic competitions and won the national third prize twice.

In 2002, Zhihua spent a happy year at the International College in Beijing. This year of study boosted his computing knowledge.

For his second and third years of bachelor studies he relocated to the UK, and completed his BSc with First Class (GPA 15.5125 out of 16, the highest grade of the year) in Computer Science (September 2006) at the University of Bedfordshire.

When he was aged 22, Zhihua was offered the opportunity to start a PhD with a fee-waiver studentship. For the first 7 months, his research project title was "Grid-enabled Optimisation Algorithms for Network Planning". However, he turned his research interests into wireless propagation algorithms. Thanks to various studentships, he has been given more time to concentrate on research. In 2009, he continued research in Fribourg, Switzerland, where he developed parallel propagation algorithms in a distributed grid environment. In 2010, he undertook a project with T-mobile UK while he continued the research and improvement of the radiowave propagation model for indoor to outdoor scenarios. During the three years of research, Zhihua also taken a programming role in many European projects. From January to April 2007, he was involved in a medical project (LHDL) when he developed and implemented webservice-based 3D visualisation for medical purposes. Later 2008, he was involved in developing an enhanced knowledge searching engine. From March 2006 to December 2007, he was working part-time in Refriendz Ltd as a software engineer. He was responsible for technical operations, which involves managing web server, maintaining database, optimising SQL queries, developing new functions, and ensuring overall system efficiency. Skills involved are PHP, MySql, Smarty, Fusebox, Javascript, Css, DHTML, and Memcached. In December 2010, he was employed as a development manager for a university (University of Bedfordshire) project (orda.beds.ac.uk), which aims developing an online web application for new research students for the oncoming year. The collaboration between he and the development team had been an amazing experience that they accomplished the target within less than two weeks. The knowledge and experience he obtained from university has been so wonderful that during his PhD research, he successfully undertook several other projects such as creation of websites for www.ranplan.com and www.chinglandtravel.com in 2007. 

His propagation model 'IRLA' has been cited in the book "Femtocells - Technologies and Deployment", Wiley, January 2010 by Professor Jie Zhang and Dr Guillaume De La Roche.

Dr Lai loves programming. He thinks every good program should be a piece of art. He has been an active Pascal programmer for more than 10 years. He is also a Linux C++ and Assembly programmer. Programming has greatly changed his life, e.g. he usually decomposes things into binary codes. He says: "Programming is the fundamental skill to do research, especially for subjects on computer science or engineering." However, he is usually considered a programmer rather than a researcher.

Currently, Dr Lai continues the research in fast and accurate propagation models for wireless network planning and optimisation. Till now, he has managed to develop more than 250 thousands lines of code and 1000 APIs (excluding comment and empty lines, which consists of mixed Pascal, C++, Assembly and VB/JScript) for the state-of-the-art wireless propagation tools/engines. He is now dedicated to developing the 64-bit simulation engine and maintaining the tools. 

Research Interests

Internal Activities

• Member of Centre for Wireless Network Design (2006-) 
• Department of Computing and Information System Research Student Representative (2008-2009)
• Teaching Assistant in the CIS Labs (2005-2008, 2010-2011)
• Profile editing for IRAC: Institute for Research in Applicable Computing (2010-) 

External Activities

• Design, Maintenance and Ownership of the web site www.zhihua-lai.com
• Programmer at acm.timus.ru and phpclasses.org
• Private Tutoring available at First Tutors UK

Professional Activities 

• Membership: IEEE, IET, COST2100 and EurAAP
• Session Chair: ICWMC 2009
• Technical Program Committee: ICWMC 2010, 2011 and 2012

Awards

• 22/February/2010, Best Abstract Award, International mini-Conference on Applicable Computer Science and Technology, ICACST
• 2006-2009, PhD Fee-wavier Studentship
• 2008-2009, MPhil Research Studentship
• 2009-2010, Marie Curie Fellowship for Transfer of Knowledge

Thesis

• Zhihua Lai, The Development of an Intelligent Ray Launching Algorithm for Wireless Network Planning, Ph.D Thesis, University of Bedfordshire, 2010.
• Zhihua Lai, Chinese Chess, Bachelor in Computer Science (First Class), University of Bedfordshire (Luton), 2006.

Journals

• Zhihua Lai, Guillaume De La Roche, Nik Bessis, Pierre Kuonen, Gordon Clapworthy, Dibin Zhou and Jie Zhang, Intelligent Ray Launching Algorithm for Indoor Scenarios, Radioengineering journal - Towards EuCAP 2012: Emerging Materials, Methods, and Technologies in Antenna & Propagation, Volume 20, Number 2, 2011, ISSN: 1210-2512, p.p.:398-408.
• Guillaume De La Roche, Paul Flipo, Zhihua Lai, Guillaume Villemaud, Jie Zhang and Jean-Marie Gorce, Implementation and Validation of a New Combined Model for Outdoor to Indoor Radio Coverage Predictions, Hindawi Publishing Corporation EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking, 2010: 215352.
• Zhihua Lai, Nik Bessis, Guillaume De La Roche, Pierre Kuonen, Jie Zhang and Gordon Clapworthy, The Development of a Parallel Ray Launching Algorithm for Wireless Network Planning, International Journal of Distributed Systems and Technologies, IGI, Volume 2, Issue 2, 2011.
• Nik Bessis, Alfredo Gaitan, Mitul Shukla and Zhihua Lai, Sharing Experiences with using Next Generation Portals for Advancing Web Communities, International Journal of Web Based Communities, InterScience, Volume 7, Number 3, 2011.

Conferences

• Zhihua Lai, Hui Song, Peng Wang, Haiwang Mu, Lei Wu and Jie Zhang, Implementation and Validation of a 2.5D Intelligent Ray Launching Algorithm for Large Urban Scenarios, The Sixth European Conference on Antennas and Propagation, EUCAP, IEEE, Prague, Czech Republic, March 26-30, 2012.
• Zhihua Lai, Nik Bessis, Pierre Kuonen, Guillaume De La Roche, Jie Zhang and Gordon Clapworthy, On the Use of an Intelligent Ray Launching for Indoor Scenarios, The Fourth European Conference on Antennas and Propagation, EuCap, IEEE, Barcelona, Spain, April 12-16, 2010, ISBN: 978-1-4244-6431-9.
• Zhihua Lai, Nik Bessis, Guillaume De La Roche, Pierre Kuonen, Jie Zhang and Gordon Clapworthy, A New Approach to Solve Angular Dispersion of Discrete Ray Launching for Urban Scenarios, 2009 Loughborough Antennas & Propagation Conference, LAPC, IEEE, Burleigh Court Conference Centre, Loughborough University, United Kingdom, November 16-17, 2009, ISBN: 978-1-4244-2721-5, p.p.:133-136.
• Zhihua Lai, Nik Bessis, Pierre Kuonen, Guillaume De La Roche, Jie Zhang and Gordon Clapworthy, A Performance Evaluation of a Grid-enabled Object-Oriented Parallel Outdoor Ray Launching for Wireless Network Coverage Prediction, The Fifth International Conference on Wireless and Mobile Communications, ICWMC, IEEE & ACM, Cannes/La Bocca, French Riviera, France, August 23-29, 2009, ISBN: 978-0-7695-3750-4, p.p.:38-43.
• Zhihua Lai, Nik Bessis, Guillaume De La Roche, Hui Song, Jie Zhang and Gordon Clapworthy, An Intelligent Ray Launching for Urban Propagation Prediction, The Third European Conference on Antennas and Propagation, EuCap, IEEE & VDE, Berlin, Germany, March 23-27, 2009, ISBN: 978-3-8007-3152-7, p.p.:2867-2871.
• Zhihua Lai, Nik Bessis, Jie Zhang and Gordon Clapworthy, Some Thoughts on Adaptive Grid-enabled Optimisation Algorithms for Wireless Network Simulation and Planning, UK e-Science, All Hands Meeting, AHM, NeSC, Nottingham, United Kingdom, September 10-13, 2007, ISBN: 978-0-9553988-3-4, p.p.:615-620.
• Guillaume De La Roche, Paul Flipo, Zhihua Lai, Guillaume Villemaud, Jie Zhang and Jean-Marie Gorce, Combination of Geometric and Finite Difference Models for Radio Wave Propagation in Outdoor to Indoor Scenarios, The Fourth European Conference on Antennas and Propagation, EuCap, IEEE, Barcelona, Spain, April 12-16, 2010, ISBN: 978-1-4244-6431-9.
• Guillaume De La Roche, Paul Flipo, Zhihua Lai, Guillaume Villemaud, Jie Zhang and Jean-Marie Gorce, Combined Model for Outdoor to Indoor Radio Propagation, In 10th COST2100 Management Meeting, TD(10)10045, Athens, Greece, February 3-5, 2010.
• Nik Bessis, Alfredo Gaitan, Mitul Shukla, Zhihua Lai and John Stephens, Using Next Generation Service Oriented Technologies to Assess Cultural Handling of Information Communication Technology, International Conference on Computer Science and Information Systems, Web Based Communities, International Association for Development of the Information Society, IADIS, Amsterdam, Netherlands, July 24-26, 2008, ISBN: 978-972-8924-65-2, p.p.:261-266.
• Nik Bessis, Tim French and Zhihua Lai, Using Grid Technologies to Support Intelligence by Providing a Higher Level of Accuracy in Financial Decision Making, e-Society, International Association for Development of the Information Society, IADIS, Lisbon, Portugal, July 3-6, 2007, ISBN: 978-972-8924-35-5, p.p.:89-96.
• Nik Bessis, Mitul Shukla and Zhihua Lai, Sharing Experiences with using Web 2.0 and Knowledge Portals for Advancing Web Communities, e-Society, International Conference on Computer Science and Information Systems, IADIS, Algarve, Portugal, July 21-23, 2009, ISBN: 978-972-8924-82-9, p.p.:43-50.
• Dmitry Umansky, Guillaume De La Roche, Zhihua Lai, Guillaume Villemaud, Jean-Marie Gorce and Jie Zhang, A New Deterministic Hybrid Model for Indoor-to-Outdoor Radio Coverage Prediction, The Fifth European Conference on Antennas and Propagation, EuCap, IEEE, Rome, Italy, April 11-15, 2011, ISBN: 978-88-8202-074-3, p.p.:3771-3774.
• Hailiang Xiong, Hui Song, Zhihua Lai, Jie Zhang and Kechu Yi, A Novel Indoor Localization Scheme, 2010 12th IEEE International Conference on Communication Technology (ICCT), Nanjing, China, November 11-14, 2010, ISBN: 978-1-4244-6868-3, p.p.: 338-341. D.O.I, 10.1109/ICCT.2010.5689215.
• Guillaume De La Roche, Dmitry Umansky, Zhihua Lai, Guillaume Villemaud, Jean-Marie Gorce and Jie Zhang, Antenna Height Compensation for an Indoor to Outdoor Channel model based on a 2D Finite Difference Model, 29th Progress In Electromagnetics Research Symposium (PIERS), Marrakesh, Morocco, March 20-23, 2011.

Presentations

• Zhihua Lai, RRPS: Ranplan Radiowave Propagation Simulator, First International Workshop on Planning and Optimization of Wireless Networks, The Ridge, The Ranmoor Village, Sheffield, UK, September 14-15, 2011. (Invited)
• Zhihua Lai, A Brief Introduction to Ranplan's Radiowave Propagation Simulator - RRPS, UC4G Beijing Workshop 2010: Emerging Technologies for (B)4G Wireless Communication Systems, Conf. Room 5, High-Tech Mansion, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (BUPT), Beijing, China, August 23-24, 2010.
• Zhihua Lai, Nik Bessis, Jie Zhang and Gordon Clapworthy, The Development of an Intelligent Ray Launching Algorithm for Wireless Networking Planning, International mini-Conference on Applicable Computer Science and Technology, ICACST, Luton, United Kingdom, February 22, 2010. (Best Abstract Award)
• Zhihua Lai, Nik Bessis, Pierre Kuonen, Guillaume De La Roche, Jie Zhang and Gordon Clapworthy, On the Use of an Intelligent Ray Launching for Indoor Scenarios, Bridging the Gaps, University of Bedfordshire Conference 2010, Luton, United Kingdom, July 6-7, 2010.
• Zhihua Lai, Nik Bessis, Guillaume De La Roche, Pierre Kuonen, Jie Zhang and Gordon Clapworthy, The Characterisation of Human-body Influence on Indoor 3.5 GHz Path Loss Measurement, Bridging the Gaps, University of Bedfordshire Conference 2010, Luton, United Kingdom, July 6-7, 2010.

Projects

• University Research Student Online Application System, skill involved are PHP5, DHTML, CSS etc, December 2010, (was appointed as a manager), University of Bedfordshire, United Kingdom.
• LHDL: 3D Computer Visualisation based on web-service, skills involved are Visual C++ 2005, (MAF, VTK, MESA), March ~ June 2007, University of Bedfordshire, United Kingdom.
• Web 2.0 Knowledge-based Search Engine and Knowledge Management System: skills involved are PHP4, DHTML etc. October 2007 ~ March 2009, University of Bedfordshire, United Kingdom.

Contact details

Dr Zhihua Lai

T: +44(0)1582743101
T: +44(0)7939518997
E: zhihua.lai@beds.ac.uk
E: dr@zhihua-lai.com
W: www.zhihua-lai.com