Fusion Intelligence Laboratory

The Fusion Intelligence Laboratory (FIL) is led by Dr. Xingchen Zhang at the Department of Computer Science, University of Exeter. FIL develops machine intelligence and multi-source information fusion technologies for human benefit, with a focus on human-centered multimodal AI.

Our research spans computer vision, embodied intelligence, trustworthy AI, AI for healthcare, and real-world industrial applications. Since its establishment in 2024, FIL has grown into an active research group with PhD students, research collaborators, and a portfolio of externally and internally funded projects. Our work has been supported by the Royal Society, the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, NVIDIA, UKRI AIRR, the Exeter-Fudan Fellowship, and the Exeter-Université Paris-Saclay Seed Fund Grant.

Building on Dr Zhang’s experience at Imperial College London, FIL aims to develop robust and useful AI systems that integrate information from multiple sources and can support real-world decision-making in vision, robotics, healthcare, and industry. We welcome motivated students and collaborators who share this vision.

Research Topics People Lab News Publications Funding and Support Contact

Research Topics

The research in FIL covers following topics:

Multimodal Learning and Image Fusion
Human-Centered Computer Vision
Embodied Intelligence
Trustworthy and Ethical AI
AI for Healthcare

People

PI and Director

Xingchen Zhang

PhD Students

Zixian Zhao

Funded by Exeter PhD studentship

Ning Wang

Funded by CSC PhD studentship

Quangao Liu

Funded by CSC PhD studentship

Yanlong Meng

Funded QUEX Joint PhD studentship

Lab News

[07/2026] A candidate has been awarded an University of Exeter - Paris-Saclay PhD scholarship and will join FIL later this year.

[06/2026] One undergraduate student from our lab has been awarded the Faculty Commendation A prize to recognise his contribution to the faculty.

[06/2026] Our paper “MultiTaskVIF: Segmentation-oriented visible and infrared image fusion via multi-task learning” has been accepted by IEEE Transactions on Image Processing. Congratulations to Zixian!

[06/2026] Dr. Xingchen Zhang was awarded an UKRI AIRR Gateway project as the PI. This will give our lab access to the UK’s fastest artificial intelligence supercomputers (Isambard-AI).

[05/2026] A candidate has been awarded an Exeter-CSC PhD scholarship and will join FIL in September.

[05/2026] Our paper “SSVIF: Self-Supervised Segmentation-Oriented Visible and Infrared Image Fusion” has been accepted by IEEE Transactions on Image Processing. Congratulations to Zixian!

[05/2026] Congratulations to Zixian Zhao, the first PhD student at FIL, on receiving the Dean of Postgraduate Research’s Commendation for Excellence in Academic Citizenship.

[05/2026] Dr. Xingchen Zhang has joined the DSIT/UKRI AIRR User Advisory Group (UAG) as a core member.

[03/2026] Dr. Xingchen Zhang was awarded an NVIDIA Academic Grant as PI.

[02/2026] An Marie Sklodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship application from FIL has been successfully awarded. This year’s MSCA call was exceptionally competitive, with a success rate of below 10%. The fellow will join FIL shortly.

[01/2026] Our workshop proposal on pedestrian behavior prediction has been accepted by ICRA2026, which will be held in Vienna, Austria, on June 1-5, 2026.

[01/2026] Welcome Yanlong to join FIL as a PhD student! Yanlong is funded by a QUEX joint PhD studentship.

[12/2025] Dr. Xingchen Zhang was awarded an UKRI AIRR Gateway project as the PI. This will give our lab access to one of the UK’s fastest artificial intelligence supercomputers (Dawn).

[12/2025] Dr. Xingchen Zhang was awarded an Exeter–Université Paris-Saclay Seed Fund Grant as the PI.

[10/2025] FIL graduates Qinqing Li and Heegon Kim got their MSc degrees with distinction! Additionally, Qinqing was also awarded the Computer Science Prizes for MSc students (Faculty Commendations - A, which is awarded to students who have made a significant contribution to the faculty).

[10/2025] Dr. Xingchen Zhang’s new book, Intelligence of Fusion: Deep Learning-based Image Fusion, is now freely available for download. This book provides a systematic overview of deep learning-based image fusion methods and applications.

[09/2025] Our paper “More effort is needed to protect pedestrian privacy in the era of AI” has been accepted by NeurIPS2025 as an Oral paper (Position Paper Track, top 1.3%). [PDF]

[09/2025] Welcome Quangao to join FIL as a PhD student! Quangao received his Master degree from Chinese Academy of Science before joining FIL.

[09/2025] Our paper “Brain tumor segmentation using multimodal MRI” has been accepted by the DIFA 2025 workshop (BMVC2025). This paper is resulted from my MSc student Qinqing Li’s final project.

[05/2025] FIL members attended the ESE Research Showcase to present our robot dog (Code-E) and our research. It was a great pleasure to introduce my work to the President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Exeter, Prof. Lisa Roberts, and other members of the University Council. Exeter News 1 (internal only). Exeter News 2 (internal only).

[05/2025] Dr. Xingchen Zhang was awarded an Exeter-Fudan Fellowship to strengthen the collaboration between FIL and Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University. Only three academics at the University of Exeter recieved this fellowship this year.

[04/2025] Our paper “BGM: Demand Prediction for Expanding Bike-Sharing Systems with Dynamic Graph Modeling” has been accepted by IJCAI2025. This is a collaborative paper with colleagues at the University of Exeter and the University of Warwick. Congratulations to all co-authors!

[02/2025] Dr. Xingchen Zhang was awarded a Royal Society Research Grant from as the PI. This grant will support FIL to conduct research in Embodied Intelligence.

[01/2025] Welcome Ning to join FIL as a PhD student!

[09/2024] Welcome Zixian to join FIL as a PhD student! Before joining FIL, Zixian obtained his MSc degree in Applied Machine Learning (with distinction) from Imperial College London. Zixian is fully funded by an Exeter PhD studentship.

[07/2024] Our paper “Predicting Spatio-temporal Traffic Flow: A Comprehensive End-to-end Approach from Surveillance Cameras “ has been accepted by Transportmetrica B: Transport Dynamics. This is a collaborative paper with the Transport Systems & Logistics Lab and Personal Robotics Lab at Imperial College London.

[06/2024] Our paper “3PFS: Protecting pedestrian privacy through face swapping” has been accepted by IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems. The video demo can be found in the ‘Research’ section.

[04/2024] Dr. Xingchen Zhang joined the University of Exeter as a Senior Lecturer and established the Fusion Intelligence Laboratory (FIL). The lab aims to use machine intelligence and multi-source information fusion to benefit humanity.