Zhiwei SONG

Zhiwei SONG

Ph.D. Student of Electronic Computer & Engineering at HKUST

📝 Biography

I am currently a Ph.D. student at the Department of Electronic Computer & Engineering (ECE), the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), under the supervision of Prof. Yiwen Wang. Before that, I received my MPhil and B.S. degrees from HKUST and Northeastern University (Rank:1/292), respectively.

My research interest is broadly on Brain-Machine Interface (BMI) with a focus on reinforcement learning, transfer learning and neural decoding.

📖 Education

  • Ph.D. in ECE, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2022–Present
  • MPhil in ECE, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2020–2022.
  • B.S. in Automation (Lang Shijun Elite Class), Northeastern University, 2016 - 2020

🍻 Honors and Awards

  • ECE Best Teaching Assistant Award for the academic year 2023/24
  • HKUST Redbird Scholarship, 2023/24
  • IEEE Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (SMC) Student Grant, 2023
  • Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Scheme (HKPFS)
  • HKUST Redbird Scholarship, 2022/23
  • 3rd prize in the IEEE-EMB Hong Kong and Macau Joint Chapter Student Project Competition, 2021
  • Provincial Outstanding Graduates, 2020
  • Chinese National Scholarship, 2016/17, 2017/18, 2018/19
  • Mayor’s Scholarship of Shenyang, 2019
  • First-class Scholarship of NEU, 2016/17, 2017/18, 2018/19, 2019/20

📰 Publications

  • Kernel-based Actor-Critic Learning Framework for Autonomous Brain Control on Trajectory. Zhiwei Song, Xiang Zhang, Shuhang Chen, Jieyuan Tan and Yiwen Wang*, IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems, doi: 10.1109/TCDS.2024.3485078. [PDF]
  • Facilitating Knowledge Transfer: An Approach for Matching Neural Patterns between Motor Tasks. Zhiwei Song, Xiang Zhang, Jieyuan Tan, Mingyi Wang, Yiwen Wang*, 2024 46th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine & Biology Society (EMBC) IEEE.
  • A Novel KL Divergence Optimization Method for Aligning Neural Population Patterns during Task Learning. Zhiwei Song, Xiang Zhang, Yiwen Wang*, The 2023 IEEE Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (SMC). [PDF]
  • Cluster Kernel Reinforcement Learning-based Kalman Filter for Three-Lever Discrimination Task in Brain-Machine Interface. Zhiwei Song, Xiang Zhang, Yiwen Wang*, 2022 44th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine & Biology Society (EMBC) IEEE, 2022: 690–693. [PDF]
  • Reinforcement Learning-based Kalman Filter for Adaptive Brain Control in Brain-Machine Interface. Xiang Zhang, Zhiwei Song, Yiwen Wang*, 43rd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 2021 [PDF]

💼 Internship

Huawei 2012 Laboratories · Theory Lab Hong Kong
Research Intern · Apr. 2025 – Present
Mentor: Dr. Wenjie Wang | Project Leader: Dr. Shansuo Liang

Project 1: Touchscreen Signal Filtering Algorithm for Mobile Devices

  • Designed a multi-scale noise extraction-based filtering algorithm to enhance touchscreen signal quality under high-noise environments.
  • Applied frequency domain analysis and adaptive thresholding to improve SNR and robustness of object detection.
  • Achieved a 97% pass rate across over 10,000 internal test cases within Huawei.

Project 2: Crowdsourced Mobile Phone Localization System

  • Built a multi-feature fusion localization model based on Random Forests to track lost phones in low-signal coverage areas.
  • Developed data preprocessing pipeline and feature selection module to enhance model generalization and accuracy.
  • Achieved CEP90 localization error within 30 meters on real-world crowdsourced datasets.

✈️: Academic Activities

  • 第一届脑机智能大会, Dec 20-22, 2024, Hangzhou, China.
  • 第二届脑机接口大会暨脑机接口产业联盟第四次全会，Nov 16-17, 2024, Wuhan, China.
  • The 46th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), July 15-19, 2024, Orlando, Florida, USA
  • The 2023 IEEE Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (SMC), October 1-4, 2023, Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii, USA
  • The 4th International Workshop on Neural Engineering and Rehabilitation, August 6–8, 2023, Chengdu, China
  • 首届脑-机接口大会，暨脑机接口产业联盟第一次全会，July 3-5, 2023, Tianjin, China.
  • The 8th International BCI meeting, June 7-9, 2021, BCI Society, virtual. Poster title: Utilizing Goal-Related Information from the Medial Prefrontal Cortex in the Brain-Machine Interface.

🧑‍🏫 Teaching Assistant (TA)

  • HKUST ELEC 3100: Signal Processing and Communications, 2021 Spring
  • HKUST ELEC 4830: Statistical Signal Analysis and Applications in Neural Engineering, 2021 Fall
  • HKUST ELEC 4130: Machine Learning on Images, 2023 Spring
  • HKUST ELEC 3810: Data Science for Neural Engineering, 2023 Fall