Whitacre College professor Changzhi Li earned the Institution of Engineering and Technology’s (IET) prestigious £350,000 A F Harvey Engineering Research Prize.
Today (Thursday, Jan. 9) the United Kingdom-based Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) announced its prestigious £350,000 (about $432,000) A F Harvey Engineering Research Prize was awarded to Changzhi Li – a professor in the Edward E. Whitacre Jr. College of Engineering’s Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at Texas Tech University.
The A F Harvey prize supports the world’s best scientists and engineers to advance their research. Li was selected based on his globally renowned research, pioneering the next generation of low-cost smart radar sensors for non-contact health care, advanced human-computer interaction and security surveillance. His portable radar sensors enable the monitoring of individuals without on-body devices, remotely checking small motions such as respiration and heartbeat.
Li’s innovations have provided greater clarity on medical conditions like sleep apnea and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and can also be seen in the touch-free gesture controls found in today’s electronics. In addition, his work has enhanced wireless human-machine interfaces and benefitted smart living and environmental monitoring to provide accurate indoor user information and support next-generation energy-efficiency and management. He holds 14 U.S. patents with three others pending.
Despite the rapid growth of radar-based biomedical sensing, its integration into everyday life remains limited due to challenges with body orientation and movement, which can impact the reliability of obtaining useful high-quality signals. Li hopes to use his prize funds to investigate how to extract these interferences to enhance and improve the technology to achieve clearer readings and results.
“I am deeply honored to receive the A F Harvey Engineering Research Prize, and I’m thrilled about the work ahead,” Li said. “The prize will enable my research group to embark on a five-year journey focused on developing compound-eye radio frequency vision technology for next-generation biomedical radar. Our goal is to advance low-power microwave sensing techniques to monitor key information of the human body without the need for wearable devices, ultimately enhancing the well-being of society."
Li will present his work at a keynote lecture hosted by the IET on March 26. The event will be broadcast live and followed by a Q&A session.
“Professor Li is changing the landscape of radar technology, which will have a profound benefit to society,” said IET President Sir Warren East. “We’re excited to support the next phase of his research.”
For more information on the A F Harvey prize, including further details about Li’s virtual lecture, visit: www.theiet.org/harvey. To learn more about IET, visit www.theiet.org.
Li has earned several prior young engineer and early career distinctions from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and has served as a chair for several of their communication efforts and conferences. He is a Fellow of the IEEE as well as a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors.
He has actively published radar and microwave research on various IET platforms, including an edited book “Modern Radar for Automotive Applications,” a book chapter in “Micro-Doppler Radar and its Applications,” and a book chapter in “Radar and Communication Spectrum Sharing.”