headshot of Wei Gao

Wei Gao

Associate Professor
Personal Website Electrical and Computer Engineering

overview

My research focuses on the design, deployment, analysis and measurement of on-device AI architectures and algorithms on mobile, embedded and networked systems. I have strong interests in unveiling analytical principles underneath practical AI deployment problems, and designing systems based on these principles. The developed AI and system solutions are widely applied to various application scenarios, including Internet of Things, edge computing and smart health.

about

(2016) NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award.

PhD, Pennsylvania State University, 2012

B.E., University of Science and Technology of China, 2005

Huang, K., & Gao, W. (2024). FreezeAsGuard: Mitigating Illegal Adaptation of Diffusion Models via Selective Tensor Freezing.

Song, J., Huang, K., Yin, X., Yang, B., & Gao, W. (2024). Achieving Sparse Activation in Small Language Models.

Huang, K., Yang, B., & Gao, W. (2023). Modality Plug-and-Play: Elastic Modality Adaptation in Multimodal LLMs for Embodied AI.

Huang, K., Yin, H., Huang, H., & Gao, W. (2023). Towards Green AI in Fine-tuning Large Language Models via Adaptive Backpropagation.

Wang, H., & Gao, W. (2023). Tackling the Unlimited Staleness in Federated Learning with Intertwined Data and Device Heterogeneities.

Huang, K., & Gao, W. (2022). Real-time neural network inference on extremely weak devices. Proceedings of the 28th Annual International Conference on Mobile Computing And Networking, 200-213.Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). doi: 10.1145/3495243.3560551.

Song, X., Li, H., & Gao, W. (2021). MyoMonitor: Evaluating muscle fatigue with commodity smartphones. Smart Health, 19, 100175.Elsevier. doi: 10.1016/j.smhl.2020.100175.

Chen, R., Lu, H., & Gao, W. (2020). Minimizing Wireless Delay with a High-Throughput Side Channel. IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MOBILE COMPUTING, 19(7), 1634-1648.Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). doi: 10.1109/TMC.2019.2914048.

Li, Y., & Gao, W. (2020). Towards A Personal Mobile Cloud via Generic Device Interconnections. IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MOBILE COMPUTING, 19(12), 2965-2980.Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). doi: 10.1109/TMC.2019.2922289.

Marz, S., Vander Zanden, B., & Gao, W. (2019). Reducing Event Latency and Power Consumption in Mobile Devices by Using a Kernel-Level Display Server. IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MOBILE COMPUTING, 18(5), 1174-1187.Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). doi: 10.1109/TMC.2018.2857809.

MARZ, S.T.E.P.H.E.N., VANDER ZANDEN, B.R.A.D., & GAO, W.E.I. (2018). Reducing Power Consumption and Latency in Mobile Devices by using a GUI Scheduler. ACM Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems, 9(5).

Yao, W., Lu, H., Till, M.J., Gao, W., & Liu, Y. (2018). Synchronized Wireless Measurement of High-Voltage Power System Frequency Using Mobile Embedded Systems. IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, 65, 2775-2784.IEEE.

Li, Y., & Gao, W. (2017). Minimizing context migration in mobile code offload. IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, 16, 1005-1018.IEEE.

Lu, H., Zhan, L., Liu, Y., & Gao, W. (2017). A microgrid monitoring system over mobile platforms. IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, 8, 749-758.IEEE.

Liu, Y., Yao, W., Zhou, D., Wu, L., You, S., Liu, H., Zhan, L., Zhao, J., Lu, H., Gao, W., & others. (2016). Recent developments of FNET/GridEye: A situational awareness tool for smart grid. CSEE Journal of Power and Energy Systems, 2, 19-27.CSEE.

Zhao, J., Gao, W., Wang, Y., & Cao, G. (2016). Delay-constrained caching in cognitive radio networks. IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, 15, 627-640.IEEE.

Zhao, J., Zhuo, X., Li, Q., Gao, W., & Cao, G. (2016). Contact duration aware data replication in DTNs with licensed and unlicensed spectrum. IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, 15, 803-816.IEEE.

Gao, W., Li, Q., & Cao, G. (2015). Forwarding redundancy in opportunistic mobile networks: Investigation, elimination and exploitation. IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, 14, 714-727.IEEE.

Geng, Y., Hu, W., Yang, Y., Gao, W., & Cao, G. (2015). Energy-Efficient Computation Offloading in Cellular Networks. 2015 IEEE 23rd International Conference on Network Protocols (ICNP).

Cao, G., Hu, W., & Gao, W. (2014). Interest-Based Data Dissemination in Opportunistic Mobile Networks: Design, Implementation, and Evaluation. In Opportunistic Mobile Social Networks. (pp. 248-270).CRC Press.

Gao, W., Cao, G., Iyengar, A., & Srivatsa, M. (2014). Cooperative caching for efficient data access in disruption tolerant networks. IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, 13, 611-625.IEEE.

Gao, W., Hu, W., & Cao, G. (2014). Interest-based data dissemination in opportunistic mobile networks: Design, implementation, and evaluation. In Opportunistic Mobile Social Networks. (pp. 215-238).CRC Press.

Li, S., Guo, R., He, L., Gao, W., Qi, H., & Owens, G. (2014). Demo Abstract: MoodMagician-A Pervasive and Unobtrusive Emotion Sensing System using Mobile Phones for Improving Human Mental Health. ACM SenSys, Memphis, TN.

Zhuo, X., Gao, W., Cao, G., & Hua, S. (2014). An incentive framework for cellular traffic offloading. IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, 13, 541-555.IEEE.

Fan, J., Chen, J., Du, Y., Gao, W., Wu, J., & Sun, Y. (2013). Geocommunity-based broadcasting for data dissemination in mobile social networks. IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems, 24, 734-743.IEEE.

Gao, W., Cao, G., La Porta, T., & Han, J. (2013). On exploiting transient social contact patterns for data forwarding in delay-tolerant networks. IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, 12, 151-165.IEEE.

Li, Q., Gao, W., Zhu, S., & Cao, G. (2013). To lie or to comply: Defending against flood attacks in disruption tolerant networks. IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing, 10, 168-182.IEEE.

Zhou, H., Chen, J., Zhao, H., Gao, W., & Cheng, P. (2013). On exploiting contact patterns for data forwarding in duty-cycle opportunistic mobile networks. IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, 62, 4629-4642.IEEE.

Gao, W., Li, Q., Zhao, B., & Cao, G. (2012). Social-aware multicast in disruption-tolerant networks. IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking (TON), 20, 1553-1566.IEEE Press.

Zhang, Y., Gao, W., Cao, G., La Porta, T., Krishnamachari, B., & Iyengar, A. (2012). Social-aware data diffusion in delay tolerant manets. In Handbook of optimization in complex networks. (pp. 457-481).Springer, New York, NY.

Li, Q., Gao, W., Zhu, S., & Cao, G. (2011). A routing protocol for socially selfish delay tolerant networks. Ad Hoc Networks.Elsevier.

Yau, S.S., Gong, H., Huang, D., Gao, W., & Zhu, L. (2008). Specification, decomposition and agent synthesis for situation-aware service-based systems. Journal of Systems and Software, 81, 1663-1680.Elsevier.

Yau, S.S., & Gao, W. (2007). Multi-hop clustering based on neighborhood benchmark in mobile ad-hoc networks. Mobile Networks and Applications, 12, 381-391.Springer.

Yau, S.S., Huang, D., Gao, W., & Yin, Y. (2007). Mobile and Ubiquitous Computing. Wiley Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Engineering, 1-12.John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Hoboken, NJ, USA.

Huang, K., Yang, B., & Gao, W. (2023). ElasticTrainer: Speeding Up On-Device Training with Runtime Elastic Tensor Selection. In Proceedings of the 21st Annual International Conference on Mobile Systems, Applications and Services, (pp. 56-69).Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). doi: 10.1145/3581791.3596852.

Yin, X., Huang, K., Forno, E., Chen, W., Huang, H., & Gao, W. (2023). PTEase: Objective Airway Examination for Pulmonary Telemedicine using Commodity Smartphones. In Proceedings of the 21st Annual International Conference on Mobile Systems, Applications and Services, (pp. 110-123).Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). doi: 10.1145/3581791.3596854.

Yang, B., Chen, R., Huang, K., Yang, J., & Gao, W. (2022). Eavesdropping user credentials via GPU side channels on smartphones. In Proceedings of the 27th ACM International Conference on Architectural Support for Programming Languages and Operating Systems, (pp. 285-299).Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). doi: 10.1145/3503222.3507757.

Chen, R., & Gao, W. (2020). StarLego. In Proceedings of the 21st International Workshop on Mobile Computing Systems and Applications, (pp. 80-85).Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). doi: 10.1145/3376897.3377852.

Liu, Y., Huang, K., Song, X., Yang, B., & Gao, W. (2020). MagHacker. In Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Mobile Systems, Applications, and Services, (pp. 148-160).Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). doi: 10.1145/3386901.3389030.

Yang, G., Yang, B., Li, Y., Sheffler, E., Gao, W., Chen, W., & Forno, E. (2020). Smartphone-Based Ultrasonic Respiratory Evaluation (SURe) in Pediatric Asthma Patients: A Pilot Study. In AMERICAN JOURNAL OF RESPIRATORY AND CRITICAL CARE MEDICINE, 201.

Chen, R., & Gao, W. (2019). Enabling Cross-Technology Coexistence for Extremely Weak Wireless Devices. In IEEE INFOCOM 2019 - IEEE Conference on Computer Communications, 00, (pp. 253-261).Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). doi: 10.1109/infocom.2019.8737379.

Li, Y., & Gao, W. (2019). DeltaVR. In Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Information Processing in Sensor Networks, (pp. 13-24).Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). doi: 10.1145/3302506.3310385.

Li, Y., Chen, R., Song, X., Gao, W., Chen, W., & Forno, E. (2019). Device-Free Acoustic Motion Tracking over Targets with Large Sizes. In 2019 IEEE 16th International Conference on Mobile Ad Hoc and Sensor Systems (MASS), 00, (pp. 447-455).Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). doi: 10.1109/mass.2019.00059.

Lu, H., Chen, R., & Gao, W. (2019). EasyPass. In Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Emerging Networking Experiments And Technologies, (pp. 186-199).Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). doi: 10.1145/3359989.3365421.

Satyanarayanan, M., Gao, W., & Lucia, B. (2019). The Computing Landscape of the 21st Century. In Proceedings of the 20th International Workshop on Mobile Computing Systems and Applications, (pp. 45-50).Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). doi: 10.1145/3301293.3302357.

Li, Y., & Gao, W. (2018). MUVR: Supporting Multi-User Mobile Virtual Reality with Resource Constrained Edge Cloud. In 2018 IEEE/ACM Symposium on Edge Computing (SEC), (pp. 1-16).Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). doi: 10.1109/sec.2018.00008.

Lu, H., & Gao, W. (2018). Continuous Wireless Link Rates for Internet of Things. In 2018 17th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Information Processing in Sensor Networks (IPSN), (pp. 48-59).Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). doi: 10.1109/ipsn.2018.00012.

Li, Y., & Gao, W. (2017). Interconnecting heterogeneous devices in the personal mobile cloud. In IEEE INFOCOM 2017-IEEE Conference on Computer Communications, (pp. 1-9).IEEE.

Dong, Z., Liu, C., Fu, L., Cheng, P., He, L., Gu, Y., Gao, W., Yuen, C., & He, T. (2016). Energy synchronized task assignment in rechargeable sensor networks. In 2016 13th Annual IEEE International Conference on Sensing, Communication, and Networking (SECON), (pp. 1-9).IEEE.

Gao, W. (2016). Exploiting deployment information for social-aware contact prediction at the tactical edge. In MILCOM 2016-2016 IEEE Military Communications Conference, (pp. 594-599).IEEE.

Huang, Z., Zhu, T., Lu, H., & Gao, W. (2016). Accurate power quality monitoring in microgrids. In 2016 15th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Information Processing in Sensor Networks (IPSN), (pp. 1-6).IEEE.

Li, A., Li, Q., & Gao, W. (2016). Privacycamera: Cooperative privacy-aware photographing with mobile phones. In 2016 13th Annual IEEE International Conference on Sensing, Communication, and Networking (SECON), (pp. 1-9).IEEE.

Lu, H., & Gao, W. (2016). Supporting real-time wireless traffic through a high-throughput side channel. In Proceedings of the 17th ACM International Symposium on Mobile Ad Hoc Networking and Computing, (pp. 311-320).ACM.

Lu, H., & Gao, W. (2016). Scheduling dynamic wireless networks with limited operations. In 2016 IEEE 24th International Conference on Network Protocols (ICNP), (pp. 1-10).IEEE.

Tong, L., & Gao, W. (2016). Application-aware traffic scheduling for workload offloading in mobile clouds. In IEEE INFOCOM 2016-The 35th Annual IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications, (pp. 1-9).IEEE.

Tong, L., Li, Y., & Gao, W. (2016). A hierarchical edge cloud architecture for mobile computing. In IEEE INFOCOM 2016-The 35th Annual IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications, (pp. 1-9).IEEE.

Li, Y., & Gao, W. (2015). Code offload with least context migration in the mobile cloud. In 2015 IEEE Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM), (pp. 1876-1884).IEEE.

Liu, Y., Liu, C., Zhang, X., Gao, W., He, L., & Gu, Y. (2015). A computation offloading framework for soft real-time embedded systems. In 2015 27th Euromicro Conference on Real-Time Systems, (pp. 129-138).IEEE.

Lu, H., Zhan, L., Liu, Y., & Gao, W. (2015). A GPS-free power grid monitoring system over mobile platforms. In 2015 IEEE Power & Energy Society General Meeting, (pp. 1-5).IEEE.

Gao, W. (2014). Opportunistic peer-to-peer mobile cloud computing at the tactical edge. In 2014 IEEE Military Communications Conference, (pp. 1614-1620).IEEE.

Gao, W., & Lu, H. (2014). User-centric incentive design for participatory mobile phone sensing. In Next-Generation Analyst II, 9122, (p. 91220H).International Society for Optics and Photonics.

Gao, W., & Patel, M. (2014). Towards interoperability of adaptive social-aware routing at the tactical edge. In 2014 IEEE Military Communications Conference, (pp. 1160-1166).IEEE.

Gao, W., Li, Q., & Cao, G. (2014). Forwarding redundancy in opportunistic mobile networks: Investigation and elimination. In IEEE INFOCOM 2014-IEEE Conference on Computer Communications, (pp. 2301-2309).IEEE.

Gao, W., Li, Y., Lu, H., Wang, T., & Liu, C. (2014). On exploiting dynamic execution patterns for workload offloading in mobile cloud applications. In 2014 IEEE 22nd International Conference on Network Protocols, (pp. 1-12).IEEE.

Li, S., Guo, R., He, L., Gao, W., Qi, H., & Owens, G. (2014). MoodMagician: a pervasive and unobtrusive emotion sensing system using mobile phones for improving human mental health. In Proceedings of the 12th ACM Conference on Embedded Network Sensor Systems, (pp. 310-311).ACM.

Lu, H., Zhan, L., Liu, Y., & Gao, W. (2014). Power grid frequency monitoring over mobile platforms. In 2014 IEEE International Conference on Smart Grid Communications (SmartGridComm), (pp. 505-510).IEEE.

Wang, T., Meng, S., Gao, W., & Hu, X. (2014). Rebuilding the tower of babel: towards cross-system malware information sharing. In Proceedings of the 23rd ACM International Conference on Conference on Information and Knowledge Management, (pp. 1239-1248).ACM.

Gao, W., & Li, Q. (2013). Wakeup scheduling for energy-efficient communication in opportunistic mobile networks. In 2013 Proceedings IEEE INFOCOM, (pp. 2058-2066).IEEE.

Guo, R., Li, S., He, L., Gao, W., Qi, H., & Owens, G. (2013). Pervasive and unobtrusive emotion sensing for human mental health. In 2013 7th International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare and Workshops, (pp. 436-439).IEEE.

Gao, W., Cao, G., Srivatsa, M., & Iyengar, A. (2012). Distributed maintenance of cache freshness in opportunistic mobile networks. In 2012 IEEE 32nd International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems, (pp. 132-141).IEEE.

Sathiamoorthy, M., Gao, W., Krishnamachari, B., & Cao, G. (2012). Minimum latency data diffusion in intermittently connected mobile networks. In 2012 IEEE 75th Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC Spring), (pp. 1-5).IEEE.

Gao, W., & Cao, G. (2011). User-centric data dissemination in disruption tolerant networks. In INFOCOM, 2011 Proceedings IEEE, (pp. 3119-3127).IEEE.

Gao, W., Cao, G., Iyengar, A., & Srivatsa, M. (2011). Supporting cooperative caching in disruption tolerant networks. In Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS), 2011 31st International Conference on, (pp. 151-161).IEEE.

Srivatsa, M., Gao, W., & Iyengar, A. (2011). Provenance-driven data dissemination in disruption tolerant networks. In 14th International Conference on Information Fusion, (pp. 1-8).IEEE.

Zhuo, X., Gao, W., Cao, G., & Dai, Y. (2011). Win-Coupon: An Incentive Framework for 3G Traffic Offloading. In Proc. of IEEE ICNP.

Zhuo, X., Li, Q., Gao, W., Cao, G., & Dai, Y. (2011). Contact Duration Aware Data Replication in Delay Tolerant Networks. In Proc. of IEEE ICNP.

Fan, J., Du, Y., Gao, W., Chen, J., & Sun, Y. (2010). Geography-aware active data dissemination in mobile social networks. In The 7th IEEE International Conference on Mobile Ad-hoc and Sensor Systems (IEEE MASS 2010), (pp. 109-118).IEEE.

Gao, W., & Cao, G. (2010). On exploiting transient contact patterns for data forwarding in Delay Tolerant Networks. In Network Protocols (ICNP), 2010 18th IEEE International Conference on, (pp. 193-202).IEEE.

Gao, W., & Cao, G. (2010). Fine-Grained Mobility Characterization: steady and transient state behaviors. In Proceedings of the eleventh ACM international symposium on Mobile ad hoc networking and computing, (pp. 61-70).ACM.

Gao, W., Li, Q., Zhao, B., & Cao, G. (2009). Multicasting in delay tolerant networks: a social network perspective. In Proceedings of the tenth ACM international symposium on Mobile ad hoc networking and computing, (pp. 299-308).ACM.

Zhao, B.Y., Chi, C., Gao, W., Zhu, S., & Cao, G. (2009). A chain reaction DoS attack on 3G networks: Analysis and defenses. In IEEE INFOCOM 2009, (pp. 2455-2463).IEEE.

Gao, W. (2007). Towards scalable and robust service discovery in ubiquitous computing environments via multi-hop clustering. In 2007 Fourth Annual International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Systems: Networking & Services (MobiQuitous), (pp. 1-8).IEEE.

Yau, S.S., Gong, H., Huang, D., Gao, W., & Zhu, L. (2006). Automated agent synthesis for situation awareness in service-based systems. In 30th Annual International Computer Software and Applications Conference (COMPSAC’06), 1, (pp. 503-512).IEEE.

Research interests

Cyber-physical systems and Internet...
Mobile and Connected Health
Mobile and Embedded Computing...
On-Device AI