TLDR: Professor Sam Kwong Tak-wu, a distinguished AI expert from Lingnan University, has been awarded the Natural Science Award (First Prize) at the 2025 Shandong Computer Federation Science and Technology Awards. His team’s project, ‘Key Technologies for Intelligent Enhancement and Content Understanding in Constrained Environments,’ focuses on significantly improving drone capabilities in challenging conditions through artificial intelligence.
Professor Sam Kwong Tak-wu, a prominent figure in artificial intelligence (AI) and Associate Vice-President (Strategic Research) at Lingnan University, along with his research team, has achieved the prestigious Natural Science Award (First Prize) at the 2025 Shandong Computer Federation Science and Technology Awards. This accolade, considered the highest honor at the event, recognizes their groundbreaking work on ‘Key Technologies for Intelligent Enhancement and Content Understanding in Constrained Environments.’
The award-winning project addresses critical limitations faced by drones in complex operational scenarios, such as harsh weather and difficult terrains. Professor Kwong’s team tackled three major scientific challenges: ensuring stable imagery, accurately identifying targets within complex backgrounds, and achieving sustainable, cost-effective technological enhancements for drone systems. Their research has led to significant breakthroughs, enabling drones to adapt quickly to diverse environments, capture clearer and more stable critical information, and effectively pinpoint specific targets amidst cluttered visuals. Furthermore, the project has laid the groundwork for the continuous and economical improvement of drone technology.
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Professor Kwong, who also serves as the Dean of the School of Graduate Studies and J.K. Lee Chair Professor of Computational Intelligence at Lingnan University, is a globally recognized scholar. His expertise spans evolutionary computation, AI solutions, and image/video processing, with a strong track record of scientific innovation and real-world impact. He has been consistently listed among Clarivate’s most highly cited researchers from 2022 to 2024 and holds an h-index of 99 on Google Scholar, with over 500 journal articles and 160 conference papers. His contributions have also earned him an elevation to IEEE Fellow in 2014 for his work in optimization techniques in cybernetics and video coding, and he is a fellow of the US National Academy of Inventors (NAI), the Canadian Academy of Engineering, and the Hong Kong Academy of Engineering (HKAE). The technologies developed through this research have already been successfully commercialized, demonstrating their practical applicability and societal benefit.
