Dr. Rui Li (李 睿) Research Fellow School of Engineering University of Warwick Location: Institute House, Sir William Lyons Rd, Coventry, UK News | Research Interest | Education | Publications | Journal Reviewers | Awards | CV Email: [email protected] (prior);      [email protected] [ Google Scholar] [ Web of Science] [ GitHub] [ ORCID] [ ResearchGate] [ LinkedIn]

News

• [2025.12] Serving as the guest editor of the Remote Sensing: Advancing UAV-Based Remote Sensing: Innovations, Techniques and Applications (Second Edition)!
• [2025.11] One paper is accepted by Renewable Energy (link) !
• [2025.09] One paper is accepted by JAG (link, code) !
• [2025.08] Serving as the guest editor of the Frontiers in Remote Sensing: Machine Learning for Advanced Remote Sensing: From Theory to Applications and Societal Impact!
• [2025.01] Serving as the guest editor of the Drones: Advancing UAV-Based Remote Sensing: Innovations, Techniques and Applications!
• [2024.12] Serving as the guest editor of the Remote Sensing: Advancing UAV-Based Remote Sensing: Innovations, Techniques and Applications!
• [2024.10] Two papers are selected as ESI Highly Cited Paper (Top 1%) !
• [2024.09] One paper is accepted by IEEE TGRS (link, code, video) !
• [2024.07] One paper is accepted by IGARSS 2024 (link) !
• [2023.12] One co-author paper is accepted by IEEE Sensors Journal (link, video) !
• [2023.09] One co-author paper is selected as the ESI Highly Cited Paper (Top 1%) !
• [2023.06] One paper is accepted by APEN (link) !
• [2023.04] UNetFormer is awarded as the Best Paper published during 2022 in the ISPRS P&RS (link, certificate) !
• [2023.03] One co-author paper is selected as the ESI Hot Paper (Top 0.1%) and ESI Highly Cited Paper (Top 1%) !
• [2023.02] One co-author paper is accepted by PR (link) !
• [2022.11] One co-author paper is selected as the ESI Highly Cited Paper (Top 1%) !
• [2022.10] One co-author paper is accepted by IEEE GRSL (link) !
• [2022.08] One paper is accepted by ECM (link, code) !
• [2022.07] One paper is accepted by Energy (link, video) !
• [2022.07] One paper is selected as the ESI Highly Cited Paper (Top 1%) !
• [2022.06] One paper is accepted by ECC 2022 (link) !
• [2022.06] One co-author paper is accepted by IEEE TGRS (link, code) !
• [2022.06] One co-author paper is accepted by ISPRS P&RS (link, code) !
• [2022.05] One paper is selected as the ESI Hot Paper (Top 0.1%) !
• [2022.05] Three papers are selected as ESI Highly Cited Paper (Top 1%) !
• [2022.01] One paper is selected as the ESI Highly Cited Paper (Top 1%) !
• [2022.01] One co-author paper is accepted by IEEE GRSL (link) !
• [2022.01] One paper is accepted by IJRS (link, code) !
• [2021.12] One co-author paper is accepted by RS (link) !
• [2021.11] One paper is accepted by GSIS (link, code) !
• [2021.09] One paper is accepted by ISPRS P&RS (link, code) !
• [2021.08] One co-author paper is accepted by JGGS (link, code) !
• [2021.07] One co-author paper is accepted by RS (link, code) !
• [2021.06] One paper is accepted by IEEE TGRS (link, code) !
• [2021.03] One paper is accepted by IEEE GRSL (link, code) !
• [2021.01] One paper is accepted by IEEE GRSL (link, code) !
• [2020.10] Awarded with The National Scholarship for Postgraduates (研究生国家奖学金) !
• [2020.10] One co-author paper is accepted by RS (link) !
• [2020.02] One paper is accepted by RS (link, code) !
• [2019.11] One paper is accepted by 计算机应用研究 (link) !

Research Interest

My research interests lie in trans-disciplinary applications of deep learning methods, especially for image processing, computer vision and renewable energy. I have authored more than 20 peer-reviewed articles in international scientific journals such as ISPRS P&RS (IF=12.7), IEEE TGRS (IF=8.2), PR (IF=8.0), APEN (IF=11.2), ECM (IF=10.4) and Energy (IF=9.0), which have been cited 5000+ times with the h-index of 18. 11 of my papers have been selected as the ESI Highly Cited Paper (Top 1%) and 2 as the ESI Hot Paper (Top 0.1%). Currently, my research topics include:

• Deep Learning for Semantic Segmentation
• Land Cover and Land Use Classification
• Attention Mechanism in Deep Learning
• Transformer for Computer Vision
• Thick and Thin Cloud Removal
• Offshore Renewable Energy
• Real-time Wave Prediction
• Wake Effects Modelling

Education

• 2021.10-2024.05         Ph.D. in School of Engineering, University of Warwick
• 2019.09-2021.06         M.E. in School of Remote Sensing and Information Engineering, Wuhan University
• 2015.09-2019.06         B.E. in School of Automation Science and Engineering, South China University of Technology

Publications

LLM-enabled Referring Segmentation:

AeroReformer: Aerial Referring Transformer for UAV-based Referring Image Segmentation R. Li and X. Zhao. International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation (SCI Q1 Top, IF=8.6) [Link] [PDF] [code] [BibTeX]

Super-Resolution for UAV:

LSwinSR: UAV Imagery Super-Resolution Based on Linear Swin Transformer R. Li and X. Zhao. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing (SCI Q1 Top, IF=8.2) [Link] [PDF] [code] [BibTeX]

Phase-resolved Wave Prediction:

Phase-resolved Real-time Forecasting of Three-Dimensional Ocean Waves via Machine Learning and Wave Tank Experiments R. Li, J. Zhang, X. Zhao, D. Wang, M. Hann and D. Greaves. Applied Energy (SCI Q1 Top, IF=11.2) [Link] [PDF] [BibTeX]

Wind Farm Wake Modeling:

FlowFormer: Toward a Foundation Model for Full-Flow-Field Wind Farm Wake Modeling R. Li, J. Zhang, Y. Huang and X. Zhao. Renewable Energy (SCI Q1 Top, IF=9.1) [Link] [PDF] [BibTeX]

Multi-Fidelity Modeling of Wind Farm Wakes Based on A Novel Super-Fidelity Network R. Li, J. Zhang and X. Zhao. Energy Conversion and Management (SCI Q1 Top, IF=10.4) [Link] [PDF] [Code] [BibTeX]

Dynamic Wind Farm Wake Modeling Based on a Bilateral Convolutional Neural Network and High-Fidelity LES Data R. Li, J. Zhang and X. Zhao. Energy (SCI Q1 Top, IF=9.0) [Link] [PDF] [Video] [BibTeX]

Attention Mechanism:

ABCNet: Attentive Bilateral Contextual Network for Efficient Semantic Segmentation of Fine-Resolution Remote Sensing Images R. Li, S. Zheng, C. Zheng, C. Duan, L. Wang and P. M. Atkinson. ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (SCI Q1 Top, IF=12.7) [Link] [PDF] [Code] [BibTeX]

Multiattention-Network for Semantic Segmentation of Fine-Resolution Remote Sensing Images R. Li, S. Zheng, C. Zhang, C. Duan, J. Su, L. Wang and P. M. Atkinson. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing (SCI Q1 Top, IF=8.2) [Link] [PDF] [Code] [BibTeX]

Multistage Attention ResU-Net for Semantic Segmentation of Fine-Resolution Remote Sensing Images R. Li *, S. Zheng, C. Duan, J. Su and C. Zhang. IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters (SCI Q2, IF=4.8) [Link] [PDF] [Code] [BibTeX]

Vision Transformer:

UNetFormer: An UNet-like Transformer for Efficient Semantic Segmentation of Remote Sensing Urban Scene Imagery L. Wang, R. Li, C. Zheng, S. Fang, C. Duan, X. Meng and P. M. Atkinson. ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (SCI Q1 Top, IF=12.7) [Link] [PDF] [Code] [BibTeX] [ISPRS Best Paper 2022]

Building Extraction with Vision Transformer L. Wang, S. Fang, X. Meng and R. Li. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing (SCI Q1 Top, IF=8.2) [Link] [PDF] [Code] [BibTeX]

A Novel Transformer based Semantic Segmentation Scheme for Fine-Resolution Remote Sensing Images L. Wang, R. Li, C. Duan, C. Zhang, X. Meng and S. Fang. IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters (SCI Q2, IF=4.8) [Link] [PDF] [BibTeX]

Transformer Meets Convolution: A Bilateral Awareness Network for Semantic Segmentation of Very Fine Resolution Urban Scene Images L. Wang †, R. Li †, D. Wang, C. Duan, T. Wang and X. Meng. Remote Sensing (SCI Q2 Top, IF=5.0) [Link] [PDF] [Code] [BibTeX]

Class-Guided Swin Transformer for Semantic Segmentation of Remote Sensing Imagery X. Meng †, Y. Yang †, L. Wang, T. Wang, R. Li and C. Zhang. IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters (SCI Q2, IF=4.8) [Link] [PDF] [BibTeX]

Semantic Segmentation:

A2-FPN for Semantic Segmentation of Fine-Resolution Remotely Sensed Images R. Li, L. Wang, C. Zhang, C. Duan and S. Zheng. International Journal of Remote Sensing (SCI Q3, IF=3.4) [Link] [PDF] [Code] [BibTeX]

Land Cover Classification from Remote Sensing Images Based on Multi-Scale Fully Convolutional Network R. Li, S. Zheng, C. Duan, L. Wang and C. Zhang. Geo-spatial Information Science (SCI Q2, IF=6.0) [Link] [PDF] [Code] [BibTeX]

MACU-Net for Semantic Segmentation of Fine-Resolution Remotely Sensed Images R. Li †*, C. Duan †, S. Zheng, C. Zhang and P. M. Atkinson. IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters (SCI Q2, IF=4.8) [Link] [PDF] [Code] [BibTeX]

Scale-Aware Neural Network for Semantic Segmentation of Multi-resolution Remote Sensing Images L. Wang, C. Zhang, R. Li, C. Duan, X. Meng and P. M. Atkinson. Remote Sensing (SCI Q2 Top, IF=5.0) [Link] [PDF] [BibTeX]

Hyperspectral Image Classification:

Classification of Hyperspectral Image Based on Double-Branch Dual-Attention Mechanism Network R. Li *, S. Zheng, C. Duan, Y. Yang and X. Wang. Remote Sensing (SCI Q2 Top, IF=5.0) [Link] [PDF] [Code] [BibTeX]

A Deep Double-Channel Dense Network for Hyperspectral Image Classification K. Wang, S. Zheng, R. Li * and L. Gui. Journal of Geodesy and Geoinformation Science 测绘学报英文版 [Link] [PDF] [Code] [BibTeX]

3D Reconstruction:

Efficient Large-Scale Oblique Image Matching based on Cascade Hashing and Match Data Scheduling Q. Zhang, S. Zheng *, C. Zhang, X. Wang and R. Li *. Pattern Recognition (SCI Q1 Top, IF=8.0) [Link] [PDF] [BibTeX]

RLS-LCD: An Efficient Loop Closure Detection for Rotary-LiDAR Scans Q. Zhang, S. Zheng, R. Li, X. Wang, Y. He and X. Wang. IEEE Sensors Journal (SCI Q2 Top, IF=4.3) [Link] [PDF] [Video] [BibTeX]

Cloud Removal:

Thick Cloud Removal of Remote Sensing Images Using Temporal Smoothness and Sparsity Regularized Tensor Optimization C. Duan, J. Pan and R. Li. Remote Sensing (SCI Q2 Top, IF=5.0) [Link] [PDF] [BibTeX]

Conference:

A Transformer-Based Motion Deblurring Network for UAV Images R. Li and X. Zhao. 2024 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (EI, Oral) [Link] [PDF] [BibTeX]

Deep Learning-based Wind Farm Power Prediction using Transformer Network R. Li, J. Zhang and X. Zhao. 2022 European Control Conference (EI, Oral) [Link] [PDF] [BibTeX]

† Equal Contribution       * Corresponding Author       ESI Highly Cited Paper       ESI Hot Paper

Journal Reviewers

• IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging
• IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing
• IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems
• IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology
• IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters
• ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing
• Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence
• Applied Energy
• GIScience & Remote Sensing
• Geo-spatial Information Science
• International Journal of Remote Sensing
• Pattern Recognition Letters
• Geocarto International
• International Journal on Document Analysis and Recognition
• Journal of Applied Remote Sensing
• Journal of Electronic Imaging
• Waste Management
• All Earth
• Imaging Science Journal

Awards

• 2023, ISPRS P&RS Best Paper 2022, International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing | ISPRS P&RS年度最佳论文
• 2021, Outstanding Postgraduates, Wuhan University | 武汉大学优秀毕业生
• 2020, National Scholarship for Postgraduate Student, Ministry of Education | 研究生国家奖学金
• 2020, First Class Postgraduate Scholarship, Wuhan University | 武汉大学一等学业奖学金
• 2017 & 2018, National Encouragement Scholarship, Ministry of Education | 国家励志奖学金