Haofan Dong

  • Third-year PhD Student
Haofan Dong

Contact

About

Haofan Dong joined the IoE Group at the University of Cambridge Department of Engineering as a Ph.D. student in 2023, supervised by Prof. Akan. He is part of the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Connected Electronic and Photonic Systems (CEPS CDT). He completed his MRes in Connected Electronic and Photonic Systems CDT (UCL-based, Distinction) in 2023, and received his BEng in Electronic and Computer Engineering from the University of Leeds (First Class) and BEng in Communication Engineering from Wuhan University of Technology in 2022.

Haofan's research focuses on hardware-impairment-aware integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) for next-generation space networks. He develops analytical frameworks using Bussgang decomposition, Cramér–Rao bound analysis, and Fisher information methods to quantify fundamental performance limits under practical hardware constraints such as phase noise, quantization, and power amplifier nonlinearity. His work spans THz inter-satellite communications, LEO constellation sensing, and model-driven deep learning for receiver design.

He has published first-author papers in IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications and IEEE Internet of Things Journal. He serves as a Technical Program Committee member for IEEE VTC2026-Fall and as a peer reviewer for IEEE TWC, IEEE TAES, IEEE IoTJ, IEEE WCNC, and IEEE JSTARS.

Research

  • Integrated sensing and communication (ISAC): performance limits, trade-offs, and evaluation protocols
  • Hardware-impairment-aware modeling and estimation (phase noise, quantization, nonlinearity)
  • Information and estimation theory: capacity bounds, Cramér–Rao bounds, Fisher information
  • THz and sub-THz communications for space and satellite networks
  • Model-driven deep learning: deep unfolding and unrolled networks for constrained optimization
  • System-level simulation pipelines: reproducible sweeps, sensitivity analysis, and benchmarking
     

Journal Papers

  1. H. Dong and O. B. Akan, "Distortion Is Not Noise: On the Limits of the Kappa Model for Monostatic ISAC," to appear in IEEE Wireless Communications Letters, 2026.
  2. H. Dong and O. B. Akan, "Performance Limits of Hardware-Constrained THz Inter-Satellite MIMO-ISAC Systems," to appear in IEEE Transactions on Communications, 2026.
  3. H. Dong and O. B. Akan, "Martian Dust Storm Detection with THz Opportunistic Integrated Sensing and Communication in the Internet of Space (IoS)," IEEE Internet of Things Journal, vol. 13, no. 1, pp. 582-594, January 2026.
  4. H. Dong and O. B. Akan, "DebriSense: THz-Based Integrated Sensing and Communications (ISAC) for Debris Detection and Classification in the Internet of Space (IoS)," IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, vol. 24, no. 11, pp. 9282-9295, November 2025.

Conference Papers

  1. H. Cai, H. Wang, H. Dong, K. Li, and O. B. Akan, "Graph Representation-Based Model Poisoning on the Heterogeneous Internet of Agents," in Proc. 22nd International Wireless Communications & Mobile Computing Conference (IWCMC), Shanghai, China, June 2026.

Submitted Papers

  1. H. Dong, H. Wang, H. Cai, O. B. Akan, "A reversed solar illumination dependence of unintended emission from Starlink Direct-to-Cell satellites at 72–234 MHz with the EDA2," submitted to Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia (PASA), May 2026.
  2. H. Cai, K. Li, H. Wang, H. Dong, Y. Li, F. Dressler, and O. B. Akan, "Graph Representation Learning Augmented Model Manipulation on Federated Fine-Tuning of LLMs", submitted to IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, May 2026.
  3. H. Dong and O. B. Akan, "MI-ISAC: Magneto-Inductive Integrated Sensing and Communication in the Reactive Near-Field for RF-Denied Environments," submitted to IEEE Communications Magazine, May 2026.
  4. O. T. Baydas, H. Dong, and O. B. Akan, "Symmetry Enforced Phase State Communication in Chiral Magnonics," submitted to IEEE Communications Letters, 2026.
  5. H. Wang, O. T. Baydas, H. Cai, H. Dong, and O. B. Akan, "Measurement-Grounded Deadline Feasibility over LEO RF and Optical Access Links," IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems, submitted for publication, Manuscript ID: TAES-2026-1476, April 2026.
  6. H. Dong, H. Wang, H. Cai, O. T. Baydas, and O. B. Akan, "Rain Rate Estimation Bounds and Weather-Adaptive Pilot Allocation for LEO Satellite ISAC," IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, submitted for publication, April 2026.
  7. H. Dong and O. B. Akan, "CisLunarSense: Opportunistic ISAC for Debris Detection at the Lunar Gateway," IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems, submitted for publication, April 2026.
  8. H. Dong and O. B. Akan, "Fisher Information Limits of Satellite RF Fingerprint Identifiability for Authentication," IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, submitted for publication, March 2026.
  9. H. Dong, H. Wang, H. Cai, and O. B. Akan, "Performance Bounds and Robust Filtering for LEO Inter-Satellite Synchronization under Cross-Epoch Doppler Coupling," IEEE International Workshop on Signal Processing Advances in Wireless Communications (SPAWC), submitted for publication, March 2026. 
  10. H. Dong and O. B. Akan, "Cramér–Rao Bounds for Magneto-Inductive Integrated Sensing and Communications," IEEE Wireless Communications Letters, submitted for publication, February 2026.
  11. H. Dong, H. Wang, H. Cai, and O. B. Akan, "Fundamental Limits of Cooperative Integrated Sensing and Communications over Low-Earth Orbit THz Satellite Channels," submitted to IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, 2025.
  12. H. Dong and O. B. Akan, "Fundamental Limits of THz Inter-Satellite ISAC Under Hardware Impairments," submitted to IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, 2025.
  13. H. Cai, H. Dong, H. Wang, K. Li, and O. B. Akan, "Graph Representation-based Model Poisoning on Federated LLMs in CyberEdge Networks," submitted to IEEE Communications Magazine, 2025.
  14. H. Cai, H. Wang, H. Dong, O. B. Akan, "Semantic Communication for the Internet of Space: New Architecture, Challenges, and Future Vision", 2025.
  15. H. Dong and O. B. Akan, “MASC: Integrated Sensing and Communications for the Martian Internet of Space,” submitted to IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, 2025.

Teaching and supervision

Teaching: 

  • Supervisor, Undergraduate Module (3F4: Data Transmission), University of Cambridge, Lent 2025.
  • Co-Supervisor, MEng Project, University of Cambridge, July 2025–present.
  • Certified Undergraduate Supervisor, University of Cambridge, Feb. 2025.

Research supervision: 

  • Umut Kahveci (Bilkent University, visiting undergraduate) — ML-based predictive beam tracking for free-space optical inter-satellite links, Summer 2026.
  • Minghong Zhao (Cambridge Engineering, Information Engineering) — Estimation-theoretic analysis for wireless communication systems, 2026–present.