About Me
Welcome, my name is Yidong Ren, currently a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate in the Computer Science and Engineering Department at Michigan State University advised by Professor ZhiChao Cao. I received my bachelor's degree in Electronic and Information Engineering from University of Electronic Science and Technology of China in 2021. I was a research intern at Nanyang Technological University in 2019, advised by Professor Mo Li. My research focuses on Internet of Things (IoT) and Wireless Communication/Networks, especially on Low-power Wide-area Networks (LPWAN), ultra-low power communication, and their applications in rural areas. Check out my Resume
Sustainable IoT: Satellite IoT for rural backhaul (MobiCom'24a). Underground agricultural IoT (MobiCom'24b).
ML for IoT: Encoder decoder design (MobiSys’24, MobiHoc’23, ICLR’23 ML4IoT).
IoT Physical Layer: Batteryless communication (INFOCOM'23, INFOCOM'25). LoRa demodulation (MobiCom'24c).
Mobile Computing: Wearable system (SenSys’24). Channel-adapted Wi-Fi (TMC’22).
News
- [10/2024] One paper accepted to SenSys’25.
- [12/2024] One paper accepted to INFOCOM’25.
- [11/2024] Serve as USENIX Security’25 Artifact Evaluation Committee
- [11/2024] Awarded ACM MobiCom’24 Distinguished Artifact Reviewer!
- [10/2024] One paper accepted to SenSys’24. Awarded ACM MobiCom’24 Travel Grant.
- [09/2024] Finished two deep learning wireless projects for Wi-Fi8 during my internship in Qualcomm.
- [08/2024] Two papers accepted to MobiCom’24.
- [08/2024] Serve as Technical Program Committee of ICPADS’24.
- [06/2024] Gave a talk at Tsinghua University.
- [05/2024] Awarded ACM MobiSys’24 Travel Grant.
- [04/2024] Serve as ACM MobiSys’24 Artifact Evaluation Committee.
- [03/2024] One paper accepted to MobiSys’24 with shepherding.
- [02/2024] Serve as ACM MobiCom’24 Artifact Evaluation Committee.
- [11/2023] One paper accepted to MobiCom’24 with shepherding.
Publications
AeroEcho: Towards Agricultural Low-power Wide-area Backscatter with Aerial Excitation Source. (To appear)
Yidong Ren, Gen Li, Yimeng Liu, Younsuk Dong, Zhichao Cao
IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications, 2025
SateRIoT: High-performance Ground-Space Networking for Rural IoT
Yidong Ren, Amalinda Gamage, Li Liu, Mo Li, Shigang Chen, Younsuk Dong, Zhichao Cao
The 30th Annual International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking, 2024
[PDF]
Demeter: Reliable Cross-soil LPWAN with Low-cost Signal Polarization Alignment
Yidong Ren, Wei Sun, Jialuo Du, Huaili Zeng, Younsuk Dong, Mi Zhang, Shigang Chen, Yunhao Liu, Tianxing Li and Zhichao Cao
The 30th Annual International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking, 2024
[PDF][Code]
LoRaTrimmer: Optimal Energy Condensation with Chirp Trimming for LoRa Weak Signal Decoding
Jialuo Du, Yunhao Liu, Yidong Ren, Li Liu, Zhichao Cao
The 30th Annual International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking, 2024
[PDF][Code[
ChirpTransformer: Versatile LoRa Encoding for Low-power Wide-area IoT
Yidong Ren*, Chenning Li*, Shuai Tong, Shakhrul Iman Siam, Mi Zhang, Jiliang Wang, Yunhao Liu, Zhichao Cao
The 22nd ACM International Conference on Mobile Systems, Applications, and Services, 2024
[PDF][Code]
PiezoBuds: Piezo-Aided Secure Earbuds with Practical Speaker Authentication
Gen Li, Huaili Zeng, Hanqing Guo, Yidong Ren, Aiden Dixon, Zhichao Cao, Tianxing Li
The 22nd ACM Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems, 2024
[PDF]
SRLoRa: Neural-enhanced LoRa Weak Signal Decoding with Multi-gateway Super Resolution
Jialuo Du, Yidong Ren, Zhui Zhu, Chenning Li, Zhichao Cao, Qiang Ma and Yunhao Liu
The 24th International Symposium on Theory, Algorithmic Foundations, and Protocol Design for Mobile Networks and Mobile Computing, 2023
[PDF]
NELoRa-Bench: A Benchmark for Neural-enhanced LoRa Demodulation
Jialuo Du, Yidong Ren, Mi Zhang, Yunhao Liu, and Zhichao Cao
International Conference on Learning Representations Workshop on Machine Learning for IoT, 2023(Oral)
[PDF][Code][Video]
Prism: High-throughput LoRa Backscatter with Non-linear Chirps
Yidong Ren, Puyu Cai, Jinyan Jiang, Jialuo Du, and Zhichao Cao
IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications, 2023
[PDF]
Is Lorawan Really Wide? Fine-grained LoRa Link-level Measurement in An Urban Environment
Yidong Ren*, Li Liu*, Chenning Li*, Zhichao Cao and Shigang Chen
IEEE 30th International Conference on Network Protocols, 2022
[PDF][Code]
Channel Adapted Antenna Augmentation for Improved Wi-Fi Throughput
Yanbo Zhang, Weiping Sun, Yidong Ren, Sung-ju Lee and Mo Li
IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, 2022
[PDF]
* denote co-primary authors
Academic Service
Program Committee
USENIX Security’25 Artifact Evaluation
ACM Mobicom’24 Artifact Evaluation
ACM Mobisys’24 Artifact Evaluation
ACM Sensys’24 Artifact Evaluation
IEEE ICPADS’24 Technical Program Committee
Invited Reviewer
IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking (2023 2024 2025)
IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing (2024 2025)
IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communication (2025)
ACM Transactions on Sensor Network (2022 2023 2024)
MobiQuitous’22
Awards
ACM MobiCom Distinguished Artifact Reviewer, 2024
Michigan State University Dissertation Completion Fellowship, 2025
ACM MobiCom Travel Grant, 2024
ACM MobiSys Travel Grant, 2024
ACM MobiHoc Travel Grant, 2023
IEEE ICNP Travel Grant, 2022
Industrial Experience
Qualcomm - Wi-Fi System Team Intern (Deep learning on wireless projects for localization and roaming). 06/2024-09/2024