Appointed Associate Editor of IEEE TVT
Serving on the editorial board of IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology.
Antennas · Circuits · Electromagnetics
Xuekang Liu
- Lecturer (Assistant Professor)
- Lancaster University
- Associate Editor
- IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology (IEEE TVT)
Academic journey, at a glance
About
I am a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Electronics and Communication Engineering at Lancaster University, working on antennas, reconfigurable circuits and electromagnetic surfaces for wireless communications.
My research spans multiband and MIMO arrays, filtering antennas, transmitarrays, metasurfaces, and millimetre-wave and sub-THz RF systems. I am interested in the journey from electromagnetic design to fabrication and experimental validation.
Before joining Lancaster as a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in September 2026, I held postdoctoral research positions at Imperial College London, working with Prof. Bruno Clerckx (IEEE Fellow), and at Lancaster University, working with Prof. Claudio Paoloni and Dr. Lei Wang.
I received my PhD in Engineering from the University of Kent in 2024, supervised by Prof. Steven Gao (IEEE Fellow) and Dr. Benito Sanz-Izquierdo, and my master's degree with honours in Electromagnetic Field and Microwave Technology from Xidian University in 2020, supervised by Prof. Wei Hu.
Notes along the way.
Joined Lancaster University as a Lecturer (Assistant Professor)
Electronics and Communication Engineering.
Named among IEEE TAP’s Top 200 Reviewers
Recognised for peer-review contributions to IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation.
Awarded FTH funding for reconfigurable circuit patent filing
£8,000 from the Federated Telecoms Hubs (FTH), as lead inventor and applicant.
Earlier updates 2019–2026 · 9 entries
IEEE AWPL Outstanding Reviewer Award
Recognised for contributions to peer review in IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters.
Joined Imperial College London as a Postdoctoral Researcher
Joined Prof. Bruno Clerckx’s group to work on reconfigurable intelligent surfaces and metasurfaces for next-generation wireless communications.
Paper selected for the IEEE TAP 5G/6G collection
My work on wideband dual-polarized antennas was selected for the special article collection on antennas and propagation for emerging 5G/6G communications.
Among the 23 most-read IEEE TAP articles
My paper on a mutual-coupling-suppressed dual-band dual-polarized base station antenna was recognised among the journal’s 23 most-read articles for 2023.
URSI Young Scientist Award
Received the Young Scientist Award from the URSI Germany Member Committee.
iWAT Best Student Paper Award — second prize
Received second prize in the Best Student Paper Award at iWAT 2022 in Dublin.
Full PhD scholarship at the University of Kent
Awarded a full PhD scholarship to work with Prof. Steven Gao.
Outstanding Master’s Thesis Award
My master’s thesis at Xidian University was recognised among the top 2% of 2,998 theses.
Best Paper Award — third prize
Received third prize for Best Paper from the National Key Laboratory of Antenna and Microwave Technology.
From electromagnetic concepts to working hardware.
01 / Reconfigurable electromagneticsShaping how
Shaping how
waves interact.
Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, metasurfaces and microwave circuits that control electromagnetic propagation.
02 / Antennas & arraysMore capability.
More capability.
Smaller footprints.
Multiband, dual-polarized and MIMO antennas, with integrated filtering and mutual-coupling suppression for wireless systems.
03 / High-frequency systemsReaching into
Reaching into
the sub-THz spectrum.
Transmitarrays, dielectric lens antennas and W-band communication systems, combining design with prototyping and measurements.
Research put into practice.
June 2026
Patent Filing Support for “A Reconfigurable Circuit Architecture for Electromagnetic Systems”
June 2025 – present
Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces 2.0 for 6G: Beyond Diagonal Phase Shift Matrices
Hardware architecture, functional prototypes and experimental characterisation of beyond-diagonal reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (BD-RIS).
June 2025 – September 2026
Hub in All-Spectrum Connectivity (HASC)
Contributed to Imperial College London’s research activities within HASC as a postdoctoral researcher in Prof. Bruno Clerckx’s group.
June 2024 – May 2025
Multibeam W-Band Fixed Wireless Access Enabled by Traveling Wave Tubes
High-gain multi-beam transmitarrays and W-band hardware for high-capacity wireless links.
Earlier projects 2017–2024 · 4 projects
January 2021 – January 2024
Shared-Aperture Array with Innovation on Antenna Element/Array Architecture
February 2019 – June 2020
Design of Broadband Antenna with Low-Loss Matching Network
April – July 2018
Design of Dual-Polarized Array Antenna
October 2017 – August 2018
Research on Terminal MIMO Antenna Technology
A selection of my work.
—Citations
—h-index
—i10-index
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* Corresponding author
2026Preprint
Analog computing
Analog computing with hybrid couplers and phase shifters
M. Nerini, X. Liu* and B. Clerckx
arXiv preprint · arXiv:2603.24604
2025Journal
Filtering antennas
Broadband Dual-Polarized Filtering Antenna for Base Station Systems
X. Liu*, B. Sanz-Izquierdo, L. Wang, L. Zhang, X. X. Yang and S. Gao
IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation
2025Journal
Shared-aperture arrays
Dual-Band Dual-Polarized Array Based on Electromagnetic Transparent Antenna for Vehicle-Mounted Base Station Systems
X. Liu* et al.
IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology
2024Journal
Multimode antennas
Differentially Fed Dual-Band Base Station Antenna With Multimode Resonance and High Selectivity for 5G Applications
X. Liu*, B. Sanz-Izquierdo, H. Zhang, S. Gao, W. Hu, X. X. Yang and J. T. S. Sumantyo
IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation
2024Journal
Filtering antennas
Wideband Dual-Polarized Antenna With High Selectivity for 5G Sub-6-GHz Base Station Applications
X. Liu*, B. Sanz-Izquierdo, S. Gao, H. Zhang, W. Hu, X. X. Yang and J. T. S. Sumantyo
IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation
Academic service & recognition.
216Verified peer reviewsWeb of Science
Last verified
Editorial service
Associate Editor
Peer-review journals
- IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation
- IEEE Transactions on Multimedia
- IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement
- IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics
- IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology
- Results in Engineering
- IEEE Internet of Things Journal
- IEEE Communications Magazine
- Materials & Design
- Scientific Reports
- IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters
- IEEE Access
- AEU – International Journal of Electronics and Communications
- Journal of Infrared, Millimeter, and Terahertz Waves
- Wireless Networks
- ETRI Journal
- Wireless Personal Communications
- International Journal of Antennas and Propagation
- IET Microwaves, Antennas and Propagation
- Microwave and Optical Technology Letters
- Electronics Letters
- IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Electromagnetics, Antennas and Propagation
TPC member
- EuCAP · 2025, 2026 & 2027
- International Conference on AI in Healthcare · 2024
- UCMMT · 2024
- FNWF · 2026
Grant review
Top 200 Reviewer
IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation
Outstanding Reviewer Award
IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters
Young Scientist Award
URSI Member Committee, Germany
Best Student Paper Award
17th International Workshop on Antenna Technology, Dublin
Outstanding Academic Achievement
Xidian University
Experience & education.
Research across institutions. A continuing curiosity.
Work experience
September 2026 – present Current
Lancaster University
United KingdomLecturer (Assistant Professor) in Electronics and Communication Engineering
June 2025 – September 2026
Imperial College London
United KingdomPostdoctoral Researcher
Line manager: Prof. Bruno Clerckx.
Prof. Bruno Clerckx: IEEE Fellow; Professor of Wireless Communications and Signal Processing.
Design and prototyping of reconfigurable intelligent surfaces and metasurfaces.
June 2024 – May 2025
Lancaster University
United KingdomPostdoctoral Researcher
Line managers: Prof. Claudio Paoloni and Dr. Lei Wang.
Prof. Claudio Paoloni: Cockcroft Chair; IEEE Senior Member; IEEE Electron Devices Society Distinguished Lecturer; Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques.
Dr. Lei Wang: Associate Professor / Senior Lecturer in Electronics (THz technology); IEEE Senior Member.
Multi-beam transmitarrays, dielectric lens antennas and W-band communication systems using CNC machining, PCB fabrication and 3D printing.
2017 – 2018 · Full-time, then part-time
Huaqing Ruida Technology Co. Ltd
ChinaSignal Processing Engineer
RF link simulation and on-site validation for target simulator systems.
Education
2021 – 2024
University of Kent
United KingdomPhD in Engineering
Supervisors: Prof. Steven Gao and Dr. Benito Sanz-Izquierdo.
Prof. Steven Gao: IEEE Fellow; Fellow of the IET and the Royal Aeronautical Society; Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters.
2017 – 2020
Xidian University
ChinaMaster's in Electromagnetic Field and Microwave Technology
With honours · Supervised by Prof. Wei Hu.
2012 – 2016
Xidian University
ChinaBEng in Electronic Information Engineering
Beyond the diagonal.
Concept illustration only. Lossless port-network and scalar wave model; not full-wave simulation or measured hardware performance.
Illumination
OperationReflection
Dashed: D-RISSolid: BD-RIS
Comparison details & S parameters
Suppression directly minimises the highest power outside a shared main-beam sector, subject to the same target direction and minimum target power. D-RIS optimises all eight phases; BD-RIS also varies amplitudes within each lossless pair. The optimised D-RIS solution remains a feasible BD-RIS candidate.
| Metric | D-RIS | BD-RIS |
|---|---|---|
| At target | ||
| Actual peak angle | ||
| Highest sidelobe / target | ||
| Highest sidelobe · common scale ↓ |
The main-beam sector is fixed before optimisation: |sin θ − sin θ₀| < 2.24/8 = 0.28 for both designs. Its boundaries and the refined peaks outside it are included in the maximum-power check. This is a fixed-sector sidelobe metric, not a first-null SLL estimate; equal sectors do not imply identical half-power beamwidths. Curves share one power reference and are not separately peak-normalised.
Matrix brightness = magnitude. Hover or focus a cell for complex S. Each reflection matrix R maps the same incident vector a to b. Full-network port ordering is listed below.
Complex full S matrices
8 independent pairs · 8 front + 8 rear ports · group size 2.
Front: receive / reflectRear: transmit
Source position
Shared by both tabs. Near/far selects the illumination; outgoing plots remain far-field angular patterns. Source distance is measured from the array centre.
Enable JavaScript to compare lossless diagonal and beyond-diagonal S-parameter responses.
Good research starts
with a conversation.
For research enquiries and academic collaboration, get in touch.
xuekangliu@outlook.comFor peer-review correspondence:
xuekangliu@ieee.org