Cong Liu

Associate Professor
Department of Computer Science
Department of Computer Engineering
Erik Jonsson School of Engineering & Computer Science
The University of Texas at Dallas


ECSS 4.211, UTD
Richardson, Texas
                         Office phone: (972) 883-3572

Research Assistant (RA) positions available for self-motivated PhD students. I am passionate about designing and implementing timing-predictable, efficient, and safe autonomous embedded systems, with autonomous driving as the currently focused application domain. Recent research focus of our research group is on testing/detecting/mitigating vulnerabilities in DNN-driven autonomous driving systems and performing system-level optimization in such systems.

I am interested in working with self-motivated students who strive for research excellence. In the past, students in our group have had excellent academic and industry job placements. If you are interested in my research and working with me, please include some samples of your work (e.g., major projects, open source contributions, etc.) when contacting me directly.

For current UTD students who are interested in working with me, please stop by my office so that we can discuss and see if there is a good match.



Recent Publications by Area
OR
Recent Publications by Year

    Autonomous Embedded Systems

  1. [USENIX ATC'20] Soroush Bateni and Cong Liu. NeuOS: A Latency-Predictable Multi-Dimensional Optimization Framework for DNN-driven Autonomous Systems, Proceedings of the USENIX Annual Technical Conference, 2020.

  2. [RTAS'20] Soroush Bateni*, Zhendong Wang*, Yuankun Zhu, Yang Hu and Cong Liu. Co-Optimizing Performance and Memory Footprint Via Integrated CPU/GPU Memory Management, an Implementation on Autonomous Driving Platform, Proceedings of the 26th IEEE Real-Time and Embedded Technology and Applications Symposium, 2020 . (* Equal contribution.)

  3. [EMSOFT'20] Zhendong Wang, Zihang Jiang, Zhen Wang, Xulong Tang, Cong Liu, Yang Hu. Enabling Latency-aware Data Initialization for Integrated CPU/GPU Heterogeneous Platform, Proceedings of the ACM International Conference on Embedded Software, 2020.

  4. [RTSS'19] Soroush Bateni and Cong Liu. Predictable Data-driven Resource Management: an Implementation using Autoware on Autonomous Platforms, Proceedings of the 40th IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposium, 2019.

  5. [RTAS'19] Xia Zhang, Xuesheng Xiao, Liang He, Yangyang Huang, Yun Ma, Xuanzhe Liu, Wenyao Xu, and Cong Liu. PIFA: An Intelligent Phase Identification and Frequency Adjustment Framework for Time-Sensitive Mobile Computing, Proceedings of the 25th IEEE Real-Time and Embedded Technology and Applications Symposium, 2019.

  6. [RTSS'18] Soroush Bateni and Cong Liu. ApNet: Approximation-aware Real-Time Neural Network, Proceedings of the 39th IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposium, 2018.

  7. [RTSS'18] Soroush Bateni, Husheng Zhou, Yuankun Zhu, and Cong Liu. PredJoule: A Timing-Predictable Energy Optimization Framework for Deep Neural Networks, Proceedings of the 39th IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposium, 2018.

  8. [TMC] Mozi Chen, Kezhong Liu, Jie Ma, Yu Gu, Zheng Dong, and Cong Liu. SWIM: Speed-aware WiFi-based Passive Indoor Localization for Mobile Ship Environment, IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, 2020.

  9. [ICS'18] Husheng Zhou, Soroush Bateni, and Cong Liu. Exploring Computation and Data Redundancy via Partial GPU Computing Result Reuse, Proceedings of the 32nd ACM International Conference on Supercomputing, 2018.

  10. [RTAS'18] Husheng Zhou, Soroush Bateni, and Cong Liu. S^3DNN: Supervised Streaming and Scheduling for GPU-accelerated Real-Time DNN Workloads, Proceedings of the 24th IEEE Real-Time and Embedded Technology and Applications Symposium, 2018. [Best Paper Award]

  11. [UBICOMP'18 / IMWUT] Shuai Wang, Tian He, Desheng Zhang, Yuanchao Shu, Yunhuai Liu, Yu Gu, Cong Liu, Haengju Lee, Sang Son. BRAVO: Improving the Rebalancing Operation in Bike Sharing with Rebalancing Range Prediction, Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies, 2018.

  12. [IoTDI'17] Zheng Dong, Yu Gu, Lingkun Fu, Jiming Chen, Tian He, Cong Liu. ATHOME: Automatic Tunable Wireless Charging for Smart Homes, Proceedings of the 2nd IEEE International Conference on Internet-of-Things Design and Implementation, 2017.

  13. [TSG] Liang He, Zhe Yang, Yu Gu, Cong Liu, Tian He, Kang G. Shin. SoH-Aware Reconfiguration in Battery Packs, IEEE Transactions on Smart Grids, 2017.

  14. [TMC] Liang He, Guozhu Meng, Yu Gu, Cong Liu, Jun Sun, Ting Zhu, Yang Liu, Kang G. Shin. Battery-aware Mobile Data Service, IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, 2017.

  15. [RTSS'16] Zheng Dong, Yu Gu, Jiming Chen, Shaojie Tang, Tian He, and Cong Liu. Enabling predictable wireless data collection in severe energy harvesting environments, Proceedings of the 37th IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposium, 2016.

  16. [INFOCOM'16] Long Cheng, Yu Gu, Jianwei Niu, Ting Zhu, Cong Liu, Qingquan Zhang, and Tian He.Taming Collisions for Delay Reduction in Low-Duty-Cycle Wireless Sensor Networks, Proceedings of the 35nd Annual IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications , 2016.

  17. [HotCloud'15] Husheng Zhou, Yangchun Fu, and Cong Liu. Supporting Dynamic GPU Computing Result Reuse in the Cloud, Proceedings of the 7th USENIX Workshop on Hot Topics in Cloud Computing, 2015.

  18. [RTAS'15] Husheng Zhou, Guangmo Tong, and Cong Liu. GPES: A Preemptive Execution System for GPGPU Computing, Proceedings of the 21st IEEE Real-Time and Embedded Technology and Applications Symposium, 2015.

  19. [TSG] Liang He, Linghe Kong, Siyu Lin, Shaodong Ying, Yu Gu, Tian He, and Cong Liu. RAC: Reconfiguration-Assisted Charging in Large-Scale Lithium-ion Battery Systems, IEEE Transactions on Smart Grids, 2015.

  20. [ICCPS'15] Liang He, Yu Gu, Cong Liu, Ting Zhu, Kang Shin. SHARE: SoH-Aware Reconfiguration to Enhance Deliverable Capacity of Large-Scale Battery Packs, Proceedings of the 6th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Cyber-Physical Systems , 2015

  21. [TPDS] Xiaoyang Liu, Yanmin Zhu, Linghe Kong, Cong Liu, Yu Gu, Athanasios Vasilakos, Minyou Wu. CDC: Compressive Data Collection for Wireless Sensor Networks, IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems, 2015. [PDF]

  22. [EMSOFT'14] Husheng Zhou and Cong Liu. Task Mapping in Heterogeneous Embedded Systems for Fast Completion Time, Proceedings of the 14th ACM International Conference on Embedded Software, 2014. [PDF]

  23. [ICNP'14] Wei Gao, Yong Liu, Haoyang Lu, Ting Wang, and Cong Liu. On Exploiting Dynamic Execution Patterns for Workload Offloading in Mobile Cloud Applications, Proceedings of the 22nd IEEE International Conference on Network Protocols, 2014. [PDF]

  24. [ICCPS'14] Liang He, Linghe Kong, Siyu Lin, Shaodong Ying, Yu Gu, Tian He, and Cong Liu. Reconfiguration Assisted Charging in Large-Scale Lithium-ion Battery Systems, Proceedings of the 5th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Cyber-Physical Systems , 2014. [PDF]

  25. [INFOCOM'14] Liang He, Peng Cheng, Yu Gu, Jianping Pan, Ting Zhu, and Cong Liu. Mobile-to-Mobile Energy Replenishment in Mission-Critical Robotics Sensor Networks, Proceedings of the 33nd Annual IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications , 2014. [PDF]

  26. [RTSS'13] Liang He, Lipeng Gu, Linghe Kong, Yu Gu, Cong Liu and Tian He. Exploring Adaptive Reconfiguration to Optimize Energy Efficiency in Large-Scale Battery Systems, Proceedings of the 34th IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposium , 2013. [PDF]


  27. Robustness Testing of DNN-driven Autonomous Driving Systems

  28. [CVPR'20] Zelun Kong, Junfeng Guo, Ang Li, and Cong Liu. PhysGAN: Generating Physical-World-Resilient Adversarial Examples for Autonomous Driving, IEEE Conf. on Computer Vision & Pattern Recognition, 2020.

  29. [CVPR'20] Mirazul Haque, Anki Chauhan, Cong Liu, and Wei Yang. ILFO: Adversarial Attack on Adaptive Neural Networks, IEEE Conf. on Computer Vision & Pattern Recognition, 2020.

  30. [ECCV'20] Junfeng Guo and Cong Liu. Practical Poisoning Attacks on Neural Networks, Proceedings of the European Conference on Computer Vision, 2020.

  31. [ICSE'20] Husheng Zhou, Wei Li, Zelun Kong, Junfeng Guo, Yuqun Zhang, Bei Yu, Lingming Zhang, and Cong Liu. DeepBillboard: Systematic Physical-World Testing of Autonomous Driving Systems, Proceedings of the 42nd IEEE/ACM International Conference on Software Engineering, 2020.

  32. [ICSE'20] Mingyuan Wu, Yicheng Ouyang, Husheng Zhou, Lingming Zhang, Cong Liu, and Yuqun Zhang. Simulee: Detecting CUDA Synchronization Bugs via Memory-Access Modeling, Proceedings of the 42nd IEEE/ACM International Conference on Software Engineering, 2020.

  33. [FSE'20] Simin Chen, Soroush Bateni, Sampath Grandhi, Xiaodi Li, Cong Liu, Wei Yang. DENAS: Automated Rule Generation by Knowledge Extraction from Neural Networks, Proceedings of the European Software Engineering Conference and Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering, 2020.

  34. [MobiCom'19] Liang He, Linghe Kong, Ziyang Liu, Yuanchao Shu, and Cong Liu. Diagnosing Vehicles with Automotive Batteries, Proceedings of the 25th ACM Annual international Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking, 2019.

  35. [ASE'19] Minguan Wu, Lingming Zhang, Cong Liu, Yuqun Zhang. Automating CUDA Synchronization via Program Transformation, Proceedings of the 34th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering, 2019.

  36. [ASE'18] Mengshi Zhang, Yuqun Zhang, Lingming Zhang, Cong Liu and Sarfraz Khurshid. DeepRoad: GAN-based Metamorphic Autonomous Driving System Testing, Proceedings of the 33st IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering, 2018.


  37. Real-Time Systems

  38. [RTSS'19] Zheng Dong and Cong Liu. An Efficient Utilization-based Test for Scheduling Hard Real-Time Sporadic DAG Task Systems on Multiprocessors, Proceedings of the 40th IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposium, 2019.

  39. [RTAS'18] Zheng Dong, Cong Liu, Soroush Bateni, Kuan-Hsun Chen, Jian-Jia Chen, Georg von der Bruggen and Junjie Shi. Shared-Resource-Centric Limited Preemptive Scheduling: A Comprehensive Study of Suspension-base Partitioning Approaches, Proceedings of the 24th IEEE Real-Time and Embedded Technology and Applications Symposium, 2018.

  40. [RTS] Zheng Dong and Cong Liu. Analysis Techniques for Supporting Hard Real-Time Sporadic Gang Task Systems, Real-Time Systems, special issue on best papers from the 38th IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposium, 2018.

  41. [RTSS'17] Zheng Dong and Cong Liu. Analysis techniques for supporting hard real-time sporadic gang task systems, Proceedings of the 38th IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposium, 2017. [Outstanding Paper Award]

  42. [RTSS'17] Zheng Dong, Cong Liu, Yanhua Li, Jie Bao, Yu Gu, Tian He. Rec: Predictable charging scheduling for electric taxi fleets, Proceedings of the 38th IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposium, 2017.

  43. [RTCSA'17] Jian-Jia Chen, Wen-Hung Huang, Zheng Dong and Cong Liu. Fixed-Priority Scheduling of Mixed Soft and Hard Real-Time Tasks on Multiprocessors, Proceedings of the 23rd IEEE International Conference on Embedded and Real-Time Computing Systems and Applications, 2017.[Best Paper Nomination]

  44. [INFOCOM'17] Guangmo Tong, Weili Wu, Ling Guo, Deying Li, Cong Liu, Bin Liu, Ding-Zhu Du.An Efficient Randomized Algorithm for Rumor Blocking in Online Social Networks, Proceedings of the 36th Annual IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications , 2017. [Among 10 out of 292 accepted INFOCOM'17 papers invited to IEEE Transactions on Network Science and Engineering (TNSE) for fast-track review]

  45. [ECRTS'17] Zheng Dong, Cong Liu, Alan Gatherer, Lee McFearin, Peter Yan, Jim Anderson. Optimal dataflow scheduling on a heterogeneous multiprocessor with reduced response time bounds, Proceedings of the 29th Euromicro Conference on Real-Time Systems, 2017.
  46. [RTSS'16] Zheng Dong and Cong Liu. Closing the loop for the selective conversion approach: a utilization-based test for hard real-time suspending task systems, Proceedings of the 37th IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposium, 2016.

  47. [RTSS'16] Jianjia Chen, Wenhung Huang, and Cong Liu. k2Q: A quafratic-form response time and schedulability analysis framework for utilization-based analysis, Proceedings of the 37th IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposium, 2016.

  48. [INFOCOM'16] Guangmo Tong, Lei Cui, Weili Wu, Cong Liu, and Ding-Zhu Du.Terminal-Set-Enhanced Community Detection in Social Networks, Proceedings of the 35nd Annual IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications , 2016.

  49. [TPDS] Guangmo Tong and Cong Liu. Supporting Soft Real-Time Sporadic Task Systems on Heterogeneous Multiprocessors with No Uilitzation Loss, IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems , 2016. [PDF]


  50. [RTSS'15] Jianjia Chen, Wenhung Huang, and Cong Liu. K2U: A General Framework from k-Point Effective Schedulabiliy Analysis to Utilization-based Tests, Proceedings of the 36th IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposium, 2015.

  51. [ECRTS'15] Yuchuan Liu, Cong Liu, Xia Zhang, Wei Gao, Liang He, Yu Gu. A Computation Offloading Framework for Soft Real-Time Embedded Systems, Proceedings of the 27th Euromicro Conference on Real-Time Systems, 2015.

  52. [DAC'15] Wenhung Huang, Jianjia Chen, Husheng Zhou and Cong Liu. PASS: Priority Assignment of Real-Time Tasks with Dynamic Suspending Behavior under Fixed-Priority Scheduling, Proceedings of the 52nd Design Automation Conference , 2015.

  53. [EMSOFT'14] Guangmo Tong and Cong Liu. Supporting Read/Write Applications in Embedded Systems via I/O placement and suspension-aware analysis, Proceedings of the 14th ACM International Conference on Embedded Software, 2014. [PDF]

  54. [RTSS'14] Cong Liu and Jian-jia Chen. Bursty-Interference Analysis Techniques for Analyzing Complex Real-Time Task Models, Proceedings of the 35th IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposium, 2014. [PDF]

  55. [RTSS'14] Jian-jia Chen and Cong Liu. Fixed-Relative-Deadline Scheduling of Hard Real-Time Tasks with Self-Suspensions, Proceedings of the 35th IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposium, 2014. [PDF]

  56. [ECRTS'14] Cong Liu, Jian-Jia Chen, Liang He, and Yu Gu. Analysis Techniques for Supporting Harmonic Real-Time Tasks with Suspensions, Proceedings of the 26th EuroMicro Conference on Real-Time Systems , 2014. [PDF]

  57. [JSA] Cong Liu and James Anderson. Supporting Soft Real-Time Parallel Applications on Multiprocessors, Journal of Systems Architecture , 2014. [PDF]


Publications during Ph.D and Masters

  1. Cong Liu and James Anderson. Suspension-Aware Analysis for Hard Real-Time Multiprocessor Scheduling, Proceedings of the 25th EuroMicro Conference on Real-Time Systems (ECRTS), 2013.

  2. Cong Liu and James Anderson. An O(m) Analysis Technique for Supporting Real-Time Self-Suspending Task Systems, Proceedings of the 33th IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposium (RTSS), to appear, 2012 [PDF]

  3. Cong Liu, Jian Li, Wei Huang, Juan Rubio, Evan Speight, and Xiaozhu Lin. Power-Efficient Time-Sensitive Mapping in CPU/GPU Heterogeneous Systems, Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Parallel Architectures and Compilation Techniques (PACT), 2012 [PDF]

  4. Cong Liu and James Anderson. Supporting Soft Real-Time Parallel Applications on Multicore Processors, Proceedings of the 18th IEEE International Conference on Embedded and Real-Time Computing Systems and Applications (RTCSA), 2012 [PDF]. Invited for a special issue (Best Papers of RTCSA'12) of the Journal of Systems Architecture: Embedded Software Design

  5. Cong Liu. The Real-Time Multi-Resource Task Model, Proceedings of the 3rd Intl. Real-Time Scheduling Open Problems Seminar, 2012 [PDF]

  6. Cong Liu and James Anderson. A New Technique for Analyzing Soft Real-Time Self-Suspending Task Systems, ACM SIGBED Review, 2012 [PDF]

  7. Cong Liu and James Anderson. Supporting Graph-Based Real-Time Applications in Distributed Systems, Proceedings of the 17th IEEE International Conference on Embedded and Real-Time Computing Systems and Applications (RTCSA), pp. 143-152, August 2011. [PDF]. Longer version with additional details: [PDF]

  8. Cong Liu and James Anderson. Supporting Soft Real-Time DAG-Based Systems on Multiprocessors with No Utilization Loss, Proceedings of the 31st IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposium (RTSS), 2010. [PDF]

  9. Cong Liu and James Anderson. Scheduling Suspendable, Pipelined Tasks with Non-Preemptive Sections in Soft Real-Time Multiprocessor Systems, Proceedings of the 16th IEEE Real-Time and Embedded Technology and Applications Symposium (RTAS), pp. 23-32, April 2010. [PDF]

  10. Cong Liu and James Anderson. Task Scheduling with Self-Suspensions in Soft Real-Time Multiprocessor Systems, Proceedings of the 30th IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposium (RTSS), pp.425-436, December 2009. [PDF] [Winner: Best Student Paper Award]

  11. Cong Liu and James Anderson. Supporting Pipelines in Soft Real-Time Multiprocessor Systems, Proceedings of the 21th Euromicro Conference on Real-Time Systems (ECRTS), pp. 269-278, July 2009. [PDF]

  12. Shuang Li, Raghu Neelisetti, Cong Liu , and Alvin Lim. Delay-Constrained Highest Throughput Protocol for Multi-Path Transmission over Wireless Multimedia Sensor Networks, Proceedings of the 9th IEEE International Symposium on a World of Wireless, Mobile and Multimedia Networks (WOWMOM), pp. 1-8, June 2008. [PDF]

  13. Cong Liu, Sanjeev Baskiyar, and Shuang Li. A General Distributed Scalable Peer to Peer Scheduler for Mixed Tasks in Grids, Proceedings of the 14th IEEE International Conference on High Performance Computing (HiPC), pp. 320-330, Nov. 2007. [PDF]