Dr. Xiaotian Dai
Research Associate
CS Disability Deputy Coordinator
Real-Time and Distributed Systems Research Group (RTDS)
Department of Computer Science
University of York, UK
CSE/120
Department of Computer Science
University of York
York, United Kingdom
YO10 5GH
Tel: +44(0)1904 325501
Email: xiaotian.dai (at) york.ac.uk

About
I am starting a new position as a Lecturer (Assitant Professor) in June 2023 at the Department of Computer Science, University of York.
Currently, I am a Research Associate on the MOCHA research project, working with Prof. Iain Bate and Prof. Alan Burns in the Real-Time and Distributed Systems Research Group (RTDS), funded by Huawei. The MOCHA project focuses on modelling, scheduling and allocation of complex many-core architectures that have high performance and stringent timing requirements, using novel methods including Digital Twins and cache-aware scheduling. The project is targeted for providing key techniques of the next-generation 5G/6G communication base stations.
Before MOCHA, I worked on the EU H2020 DEIS project in 2019 with Prof. Tim Kelly and Prof. Ibrahim Habli. The DEIS project involves developing of model-based safety assurance language (using Structured Assurance Case Metamodel (SACM); now is an OMG standard) and tools that is applicable to model-based autonomous and cyber-physical systems. This project was collaborated with AVL, Siemens, General Motor and Fraunhofer.
My research is mainly focus on real-time and cyber-physical systems, focusing on timing analysis and improving scheduling flexibility and adaptiveness over lifetime, leaning towards applications in robotics and autonomous systems. My research has led to many novel modelling, scheduling and analysis methods as well as hardware for systems with timing requirements. I am also extensively working on scheduling and timing predictability of robotic and autonomous systems (RAS) to ensure their safety, robustness and resilience.
Biography
Xiaotian Dai is a Research Associate at the University of York, UK. He joined real-time systems group at York in 2015 as a PhD research student, supervised by Prof. Alan Burns, where he was awarded a PhD degree in 2019 with Best Thesis. He received an MSc with distinction in Automatic Control and Systems Engineering from the University of Sheffield in 2014, and a BSc in Automatic Control in 2011. His research is mainly in real-time systems, which involves cooperatively design of cyber-physical system and real-time task scheduling, with various flexible scheduling task models and analysis proposed and implemented to investigate the timing of cyber-physical systems with multi- and many-cores. He has published more than 20 papers and serves as a regular TPC member and reviewer for various real-time, embedded, robotics and design automation conferences and journals.
Other information:
- Please find this page for more information on PhD opportunities.
- Real-time & embedded systems conferences tracking website maintained by me.
- You might interest in my robotics projects as part of my research and part-time entertainment.
- Landscape and cityscape photography: check my photography portfolio
Find me on: [ Google Scholar | ResearchGate | LinkedIn | Twitter | GitHub ]
News
- (news) Apr 2023: I am attending the UK Systems Research Challenges workshop. See you there!
- (paper) Mar 2023: Two conference papers were accpeted at RTNS'23: “Cache-Aware Allocation of Parallel Jobs on Multi-cores based on Learned Recency” and “Reducing Loss of Service for Mixed-Criticality Systems through Cache- and Stress-Aware Scheduling”
- (paper) Mar 2023: Two workshop papers were accepted at RAGE'23 @ CPS-IoT week: “Many-Core Real-Time Network-on-Chip I/O Systems for Reducing Contention and Enhancing Predictability” and “Graceful Degradation with Condition- and Inference-aware for Mixed-Criticality Scheduling in Autonomous Systems”
- (service) Dec 2022: Invited as a TPC member of RAGE'23 @ CPS-IoT Week
- (news) Dec 2022: @ RTSS'22 — I will host the Workshop on Mixed-Criticality (WMC) virtually at RTSS 2022. See you all there!
- (event) Nov 2022: Call-for-participation: the 9th Workshop on Mixed-Criticality (WMC) will be held in December co-located with RTSS 2022. You can find the workshop program and information on registration.
- (service) Nov 2022: Invited as a PC member of Ada-Europe'23
- (paper) Nov 2022: Our paper, A High-Resilience Imprecise Computing Architecture for Mixed-Criticality Systems, is published to IEEE TC [Paper]
- (talk) Oct 2022: @ ISoLA'22, I am giving a talk on Digital Twin for Real-Time Embedded Systems in the Digital Twin track session
- (service) Sep 2022: Invited as the Web Chair and a PC member of RTAS'23
- (service) July 2022: Invited as a PC member (Artifacts) of RTSS'22
- (service) July 2022: Invited as a PC member of ICESS'22
- (paper) July 2022: the first journal paper of my PhD student Jie Zou, reTSN: Resilient and Efficient Time-Sensitive Network for Automotive In-Vehicle Communication, is published to IEEE TCAD [Paper]
- (talk) June 2022: @ Ada Europe'22 — “Resilience-aware Mixed-criticality DAG Scheduling on Multi-cores for Autonomous Systems”, presented by Jie Zou
- (talk) June 2022: @ ACC'22 — “Discretization and Stabilization of Energy-based Controller for Period Switching Control and Flexible Scheduling”, presented by Dr. Tafrashi
- (service) May 2022: Invited as a PC member of DSD'22
- (service) May 2022: Invited as the co-chair of WMC workshop @ RTSS'22
- (service) Apr 2022: Invited as the co-chair of the workshop: Innovative Defense Technologies in 5G and Beyond Networks Using ML @ MONAMI'22
- (service) Feb 2022: Invited as a PC member of ECRTS'22 (Artifacts Evaluation)
- (service) Jan 2022: Invited as a PC member of RAGE workshop @ DAC 2022
- (talk) Nov 2021: @ 6th Annual UK System Research Challenges Workshop — Digital Twin for Scheduling in Embedded and Real-Time Systems
- (service) Sep 2021: Invited as a PC member of Ada-Europe'22
- (service) May 2021: Invited as a PC member of ICESS'21
- (talk) May 2021: @ RTAS'21, May 18 — “Digital Twin for Dependable Multi-Core Real-Time Systems — Requirements and Open Challenges”
- (service) Apr 2021: RTNS'21 — invited as the Systems Session Chair
- (service) Jan 2021: RTAS'21 — invited as a PC member (Brief Industry Paper track)
- (service) Jan 2021: Ada-Europe'21 — invited as a PC member
(Last updated: 2023-03-26 )