Qingchao Li
Beihang University, China
Qingchao Li received the B.S. degree from the University of Science and Technology Beijing in 2017, the M.S. degree from the University of Science and Technology of China in 2020, and the Ph.D. degree from the University of Southampton in 2024 under a fully funded scholarship jointly supported by the University of Southampton and InterDigital Communications Inc. From 2024 to 2025, he was a Research Fellow with the School of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton. He is currently an Associate Professor at the Department of Electronic Information Engineering, Beihang University. His research interests include reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS), Fluid Antennas Systems (FAS), integrated terrestrial and non-terrestrial networks (TN-NTN) and cell-free networks. He is the editor for IEEE Wireless Communications Letters. He was the recipient of the Exemplary Reviewer Certificate of IEEE Wireless Communications Letters in 2024.
Future wireless networks require effective interference management under practical hardware and coordination constraints. This talk explores the integration of fluid antenna systems (FASs) into user-centric cell-free networks through a dual-scale spatial enhancement paradigm. At the macro scale, distributed access points form user-centric clusters based on statistical channel information, exploiting large-scale propagation diversity to strengthen desired links and mitigate interference. At the micro scale, each access point adapts its active antenna positions through fluid-port selection using instantaneous channel information, providing additional spatial flexibility with a limited number of radio-frequency chains. We present the proposed architecture, practical antenna realizations, and a hierarchical framework that coordinates access-point clustering with local port selection across different timescales. Numerical case studies illustrate how distributed cooperation and position-domain adaptation jointly improve spectral efficiency, with particularly pronounced benefits in interference-limited multiuser scenarios. We also examine the effects of port resolution and physical aperture, and discuss open challenges in channel acquisition, coordination across timescales, near-field operation, and hardware-aware implementation. The talk highlights opportunities for combining network-level cooperation with local antenna reconfigurability to support efficient and adaptable wireless connectivity.