Dear Colleagues and Students,

The State Key Laboratory of Internet of Things for Smart City would like to invite you to join our “IOTSC Talk Series” on 27/04/2026 (Monday). We are pleased to invite Prof. Angela Yingjun ZHANG from The Chinese University of Hong Kong as the speaker.

Shaping Latent Space: Bridging Task-Oriented Source Coding and Physical Layer Optimization for 6G
Speaker: Prof. Angela Yingjun ZHANG
Date: 27/04/2026 (Monday)
Time: 14:00 – 15:00
Language: English
Venue: N21-6007

Abstract:
Task-oriented communications for 6G require going beyond traditional distortion metrics to support diverse downstream tasks, such as generative reconstruction and discriminative tasks. Understanding and shaping the latent space becomes essential. The latent space structure determines what task-relevant information is preserved and how efficiently it can be transmitted over wireless channels. This talk examines latent space shaping from two complementary perspectives. In the first part, we focus on generative compression and show how designing the reverse diffusion process can shape the latent space to flexibly navigate the rate-distortion-perception tradeoff. We propose a training-free score-scaled probability flow ODE that traverses the entire RDP surface with a single pre-trained diffusion model, with provable optimality for Gaussian sources. In the second part, we turn to discriminative tasks and leverage the maximal coding rate reduction (MCR²) principle to learn latent features with structured subspace geometry. We then design MIMO precoders that preserve these geometric properties through the wireless channel, thereby aligning physical layer optimization with the task objective.

Speaker’s Bio:
Angela Yingjun Zhang received her Ph.D. degree from the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. She joined the Department of Information Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2005, where she is now a professor. Prof. Zhang is now the Steering Committee Chair of IEEE Wireless Communication Letters, Director of IEEE ComSoc Asia Pacific Region Board, and member of IEEE VTS Fellow Evaluation Standing Committee. Previously, she served as Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society, Chair of the Executive Editor Committee of IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, and member of IEEE ComSoc Fellow Evaluation Standing Committee. She is a co-recipient of 2021 and 2014 IEEE ComSoc Asia Pacific Outstanding Paper Awards, 2013 IEEE SmartgridComm Best Paper Award, and 2011 IEEE Marconi Prize Paper Award on Wireless Communications. As the only winner from engineering science, Prof. Zhang won the Hong Kong Young Scientist Award 2006, conferred by the Hong Kong Institute of Science.

All are Welcome!

For enquiries: Tel: 8822 9976
Email: kennyfu@um.edu.mo

Best Regards,
State Key Laboratory of Internet of Things for Smart City