Professor Cheng conducts research in the fields of Wireless Communications and Signal Processing. In Wireless Communications, some of his recent works include Vehicular Networks for Smart Cities and Propagation modeling for challenging environments. His signal processing research has included such varied topics as localization, bio-signal detection and estimation, low dose medical imaging, connectivity learning in multi-branch networks, graph and hypergraph signal processing. He was a visiting professor with the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. His industrial experience includes periods with Intel, Siemens Corporate Research and General Motors Global Research.

Prof. Cheng's research and publications are widely referenced by researchers from academia and industry worldwide and were instrumental in forming the International Standard for Vehicular Networks. His work has been featured in Global media such as the Discovery Channel. According to Google Scholar, Prof. Cheng is a top cited scholar among all Trinity Faculty. Prof. Cheng is on the program committee for several top IEEE conferences and journals. He served as a guest Editor for several Special Issues on Vehicular Communications in top journals. He is a Senior Member of IEEE.  Prof. Cheng earned the Charles A. Dana Research Professorship from 2019 to 2021 for outstanding research, and was elected to the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering.

Beyond classroom teaching, Professor Cheng supervised many undergraduate research projects that led to cutting-edge discoveries, resulting in more than 20 peer-reviewed research papers co-authored with Trinity students, including a Best Paper Award.  Many students continued this passion for research to top graduate programs (such as MIT and Stanford) and their professional career. One of his recent graduate is building the hardware for autonomous driving vehicles at Intel. Another alumni is now at Tesla building clean-energy vehicles.

Professor Cheng contributed his time and expertise to professional societies such as IEEE and Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Heads Association (ECEDHA). He has served as an Associate Editor for a number of high impact journals, and as an expert reviewer for more than 200 manuscripts.