Since 2021, Guest Professor, International AI Future Lab (AI4EO), TUM
10.2019 - 05.2023, Senior Researcher, Department of Earth Observation Data Science, German Aerospace Center (DLR)
Since 2015, Senior Researcher, Signal Processing in Earth Observation, TUM
06.2014 - 07.2014, Visiting Scientist, Department of Computer Science, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
2013 - 2015, Research Associate, Chair of Remote Sensing Technology, TUM
2011 - 2013, Research Associate, TUM-IGSSE project "4D City"
04.2010 - 10.2010, Student Research Assistant, Remote Sensing Technology Institute, German Aerospace Center
2010 - 2011, Student Research Assistant, German Geodetic Research Institute (DGFI), Germany
Awards
IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing Best Reviewer 2016
Dimitris N. Chorafas Prize 2016
3rd Place, TUM-IGSSE Vodafone poster contest 2015
3rd Place, student paper contest of Joint Urban Remote Sensing Event 2011
Community Service
Reviewer for IEEE TGRS,GRSL, and JSTARS
Reviewer for ISPRS Journal of P&RS
Reviewer for European Research Council (ERC)
Reviewer for French National Research Agency (ANR)
Research Interests
Multi-baseline SAR interferometry, in particular SAR tomgraphic inversion
Robust estimation in multi-baseline InSAR, and nonlinear optimization in complex domain
SAR interferometric techniques applied to urban and volcanic areas
Computational imaging
Key Publications
Zhu, X.X., Chen, S., Zhang, F., Shi, Y., Wang, Y., 2025. GlobalBuildingAtlas: an open global and complete dataset of building polygons, heights and LoD1 3D models. Earth System Science Data 17, 6647–6668. [paper]
Wang, Y., Song, Q., Wasif, D., Shahzad, M., Koller, C., Bamber, J., Zhu, X.X., 2024. How Certain are Uncertainty Estimates? Three Novel Earth Observation Datasets for Benchmarking Uncertainty Quantification in Machine Learning. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2412.06451
Zhu, X.X., Xiong, Z., Wang, Yi, Stewart, A.J., Heidler, K., Wang, Yuanyuan, Yuan, Z., Dujardin, T., Xu, Q., Shi, Y., 2024. On the Foundations of Earth and Climate Foundation Models. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2405.04285
Zhu, X.X., Li, Q., Shi, Y., Wang, Y., Stewart, A., Prexl, J., 2024. GlobalBuildingMap -- Unveiling the Mystery of Global Buildings. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2404.13911
Zhu, X.X., Wang, Y., Kochupillai, M., Werner, M., Häberle, M., Hoffmann, E.J., Taubenböck, H., Tuia, D., Levering, A., Jacobs, N., Kruspe, A., Abdulahhad, K., 2022. Geo-Information Harvesting from Social Media Data. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2211.00543
Qian, K., Wang, Y., Shi, Y., Zhu, X.X., 2022. γ-Net: Superresolving SAR Tomographic Inversion via Deep Learning. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing 60, 1–16. [paper]
Zhu, X.X., Qiu, C., Hu, J., Shi, Y., Wang, Y., Schmitt, M., Taubenböck, H., 2022. The urban morphology on our planet – Global perspectives from space. Remote Sensing of Environment 269, 112794. [paper]
Zhu, X.X., Montazeri, S., Ali, M., Hua, Y., Wang, Y., Mou, L., Shi, Y., Xu, F., Bamler, R., 2021. Deep Learning Meets SAR: Concepts, models, pitfalls, and perspectives. IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine 9, 143–172. [paper]
Zhu, X.X., Hu, J., Qiu, C., Shi, Y., Kang, J., Mou, L., Bagheri, H., Haberle, M., Hua, Y., Huang, R., Hughes, L., Li, H., Sun, Y., Zhang, G., Han, S., Schmitt, M., Wang, Y., 2020. So2Sat LCZ42: A Benchmark Data Set for the Classification of Global Local Climate Zones [Software and Data Sets]. IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine 8, 76–89. [paper]
Hoffmann, E.J., Wang, Y., Werner, M., Kang, J., Zhu, X.X., 2019. Model Fusion for Building Type Classification from Aerial and Street View Images. Remote Sensing 11, 1259. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11111259
Zhu X., Wang Y., Montazeri S., Ge N., 2018. A Review of Ten-Year Advances of Multi-Baseline SAR Interferometry Using TerraSAR-X Data. Remote Sensing, 10(9), 1374. [paper]
Kang J., Wang Y., Schmitt M., Zhu X., 2017. Object-based Multipass InSAR via Robust Low Rank Tensor Decomposition. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 56(6), 3062-3077. [paper]
Kang J., Wang Y., Körner M., Zhu X., 2017. Robust Object-based Multi-pass InSAR Deformation Reconstruction. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 55(8), 1-13. [paper]
Wang Y., Zhu X., Zeisl B., Pollefeys M., 2017. Fusing Meter-Resolution 4-D InSAR Point Clouds and Optical Images for Semantic Urban Infrastructure Monitoring. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 55(1), 14-26. [paper]
Wang Y., Zhu X., 2016. Robust Estimators for Multipass SAR Interferometry. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing 54(2), 968-980. [paper]
Wang, Y., Zhu, X., 2015. Automatic Feature-based Geometric Fusion of Multi-view TomoSAR Point Clouds in Urban Area. IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observation and Remote Sensing 8(3), 953-965. [paper]
Wang, Y., Zhu, X., Bamler, R., 2014. An Efficient Tomographic Inversion Approach for Urban Mapping Using Meter Resolution SAR Image Stacks. IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters 11(7), 1250-1254. [paper]
Wang, Y., Zhu, X., Bamler, R., 2012. Retrieval of Phase History Parameters from Distributed Scatterers in Urban Areas Using Very High Resolution SAR Data. ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing 73, 89-99.[paper]
