Breakthrough: Collaborative: Secure Algorithms for Cyber-Physical Systems
Lead PI:
Mo-Yuen Chow
Abstract
Modern systems such as the electric smart grid consist of both cyber and physical components that must work together; these are called cyber-physical systems, or CPS. Securing such systems goes beyond just cyber security or physical security into cyber-physical security. While the threats multiply within a CPS, physical aspects also can reduce the threat space. Unlike purely cyber systems, such as the internet, CPS are grounded in physical reality. In this project, this physical reality is used to limit an attacker's ability to disrupt the system by limiting his/her ability to lie about his/her actions; if an attacker is inconsistent with physical reality, his/her actions are detectable and damage his/her reputation for future interactions with the system. The impacts of this work are far-reaching, as it creates a basis for developing inherently security CPS for not only the electric smart grid, but also advanced transportation and building environmental systems. A new generation of interdisciplinary scientists and engineers are being trained through this research. This project formulates a novel methodology that incorporates knowledge from both the cyber and physical domains into a distributed algorithm and ensures the trustworthiness, thus security, of the composed system. Metrics for security are also derived and rest on logical invariants that express correctness. The invariants either check the validity of a local action or the accuracy of remote data. They may be used as guards against an action, or may be incorporated into a dynamic reputation-based algorithm. As a testbed, a multilateral energy system on an electrical network will be studied. Preliminary studies of this system have resulted in algorithms that isolate malicious nodes within the context of a single algorithm, using a reputation metric that compares cyber information flows to physically measurable signals. The work will be extended to other algorithms and other related power systems, a generalizable framework will be developed, and more complete metrics will be derived. The project has important broader impact. It develops new approaches for securing critical infrastructure based on both and cyber and physical system aspects. The project also includes graduate and undergraduate involvement in cyber-physical systems research and design through involvement with testbeds and the Missouri Science and Technology Solar House team which designs and constructs houses for competition in the US Department of Energy Solar Decathlon.
Performance Period: 07/15/2015 - 06/30/2020
Institution: North Carolina State University
Sponsor: National Science Foundation
Award Number: 1505633
Breakthrough: Collaborative: Secure Algorithms for Cyber-Physical Systems
Lead PI:
Jonathan Kimball
Co-PI:
Abstract
Modern systems such as the electric smart grid consist of both cyber and physical components that must work together; these are called cyber-physical systems, or CPS. Securing such systems goes beyond just cyber security or physical security into cyber-physical security. While the threats multiply within a CPS, physical aspects also can reduce the threat space. Unlike purely cyber systems, such as the internet, CPS are grounded in physical reality. In this project, this physical reality is used to limit an attacker's ability to disrupt the system by limiting his/her ability to lie about his/her actions; if an attacker is inconsistent with physical reality, his/her actions are detectable and damage his/her reputation for future interactions with the system. The impacts of this work are far-reaching, as it creates a basis for developing inherently security CPS for not only the electric smart grid, but also advanced transportation and building environmental systems. A new generation of interdisciplinary scientists and engineers are being trained through this research. This project formulates a novel methodology that incorporates knowledge from both the cyber and physical domains into a distributed algorithm and ensures the trustworthiness, thus security, of the composed system. Metrics for security are also derived and rest on logical invariants that express correctness. The invariants either check the validity of a local action or the accuracy of remote data. They may be used as guards against an action, or may be incorporated into a dynamic reputation-based algorithm. As a testbed, a multilateral energy system on an electrical network will be studied. Preliminary studies of this system have resulted in algorithms that isolate malicious nodes within the context of a single algorithm, using a reputation metric that compares cyber information flows to physically measurable signals. The work will be extended to other algorithms and other related power systems, a generalizable framework will be developed, and more complete metrics will be derived. The project has important broader impact. It develops new approaches for securing critical infrastructure based on both and cyber and physical system aspects. The project also includes graduate and undergraduate involvement in cyber-physical systems research and design through involvement with testbeds and the Missouri Science and Technology Solar House team which designs and constructs houses for competition in the US Department of Energy Solar Decathlon.
Performance Period: 07/15/2015 - 06/30/2019
Institution: Missouri University of Science and Techenology
Sponsor: National Science Foundation
Award Number: 1505610
Breakthrough: Enhancing Privacy in Smart Buildings and Homes
Lead PI:
David Irwin
Abstract
The design of smart electric grids and buildings that automatically optimize their energy generation and consumption is critical to advancing important societal goals, including increasing energy-efficiency, improving the grid's reliability, and gaining energy independence. To enable such optimizations, smart grids and buildings increasingly rely on Internet-connected sensors in smart devices, including digital electric meters, web-enabled appliances and lighting, programmable outlets and switches, and intelligent HVAC systems. However, a key barrier to the broad adoption of energy-related optimizations is that prior work has shown that Internet-connected sensors inadvertently leak sensitive private information about user behavior. For example, a high or variable home energy usage typically correlates with a home being occupied. To address the problem, this research will design low-cost, non-intrusive, privacy-enhancing techniques that reduce the sensitive information leaked through smart sensor-driven devices, while still permitting the sophisticated analytics, control, and verification necessary to enable energy optimizations for smart grids and buildings. The research includes developing both consumer- and utility-driven mechanisms to preserve sensor-data privacy. The consumer-driven mechanisms leverage batteries, elastic appliances, noise injection, and renewable energy sources to obfuscate private information in externally visible energy usage data at low cost. The utility-driven mechanisms leverage cryptographic techniques within the devices themselves to enable utilities to implement critical electric grid optimizations, such as demand response, time-of-use billing, and fault localization, without requiring consumers to provide utilities, or other third-parties, with their raw sensor data. The research also develops an approach to controllable privacy, which enables users to control the amount of information smart devices leak to third parties. In this case, consumers voluntarily use smart devices, which are able to verify that consumers engage in some particular energy-efficient behavior without directly revealing sensitive information. The research includes implementing and evaluating the techniques in a prototype programmable building, which includes programmable smart devices, batteries, and renewable energy sources. The research and prototype provide awareness of smart grid privacy and its implications on public policy, and contribute to both graduate courses on smart grids and energy, as well as undergraduate research projects.
Performance Period: 09/01/2015 - 08/31/2019
Institution: University of Massachusetts Amherst
Sponsor: National Science Foundation
Award Number: 1505422
CAREER: Securing Sensory Side-Channels in Cyber-Physical Systems
Lead PI:
Selcuk Uluagac
Abstract
Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) integrate devices that can interact with each other and the physical world around them. With CPS applications, engineers monitor the structural health of highways and bridges, farmers check the health of their crops, and ecologists observe wildlife in their natural habitat. Using sensory side-channels (e.g., light, temperature, infrared, acoustic), an adversary can successfully attack CPS devices and applications by (1) triggering existing malware, (2) transferring malware, (3) combining multiple side-channels to increase the impact of a threat, or (4) leaking sensitive information. This project develops novel security tools and techniques to protect CPS devices and applications against sensory side-channel threats. The project results are released as an open source project, so interested software developers can extend and reuse them in other CPS research. Broader impacts include educational training and tools for the CPS field, and a collaboration with the Miami-Dade County Public Schools (M-DCPS), to expose underrepresented middle school students to state-of-the art technology topics to pique students' interests in cyber-security and cyber-physical systems. The project investigates the sensory side-channel (e.g., acoustic, seismic, light, temperature) threats to CPS devices and applications and evaluates the feasibility and practicality of the attacks on real CPS equipment. The result is novel sensory side-channel-aware security tools and techniques for the CPS devices. Specifically, the principal investigator (1) analyzes the physical characteristics of the sensory CPS side-channels to understand how the physical world impacts the cyber world of CPS devices; (2) investigates the information leakage through the sensory side-channels on the CPS devices; (3) develops a novel IDS particularly designed to be aware of the sensory CPS side-channels; (4) designs and develops a CPS security testbed for test and experiments on real equipment and simulation tools.
Selcuk Uluagac

Dr. Selcuk Uluagac is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at Florida International University (FIU). Before joining FIU, he was a Senior Research Engineer in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at Georgia Institute of Technology. He earned his Ph.D. with a concentration in information security and networking from the School of ECE, Georgia Tech in 2010. He also received an M.Sc. in Information Security from the School of Computer Science, Georgia Tech and an M.Sc. in ECE from Carnegie Mellon University in 2009 and 2002, respectively. The focus of his research is on cyber security topics with an emphasis on its practical and applied aspects. He is interested in and currently working on problems pertinent to the security of Internet of Things and Cyber-Physical Systems. In 2015, he received a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award from the US National Science Foundation (NSF). In 2015, he was also selected to receive fellowship from the US Air Force Office of Sponsored Research (AFOSR)’s 2015 Summer Faculty Fellowship Program. In 2016, he received the Summer Faculty Fellowship from the University of Padova, Italy. In 2007, he received the “Outstanding ECE Graduate Teaching Assistant Award” from the School of ECE, Georgia Tech. He is an active member of IEEE (senior grade), ACM, USENIX, and ASEE and a regular contributor to national panels and leading journals and conferences in the field. Currently, he is the area editor of Elsevier Journal of Network and Computer Applications and serves on the editorial board of the IEEE Communication Surveys and Tutorials. More information can be obtained from: http://web.eng.fiu.edu/selcuk.

Performance Period: 06/01/2015 - 05/31/2020
Institution: Florida International University
Sponsor: National Science Foundation
Award Number: 1453647
Collaborative Research: An Expedition in Computing for Compiling Printable Programmable Machines
Lead PI:
Daniela Rus
Co-PI:
Abstract
This project envisions a future desktop technology that prints actual programmable hybrid electro-mechanical devices from only their sketches on-demand, anywhere with the skill of a team of professional engineers using advanced materials. It would transform manufacturing as dramatically as the personal computer democratized information technology and transformed how we communicate. The capability to customize cyber-physical systems on-demand would change how contingencies are planned. Rescuers engaged in humanitarian aid and disaster reliefs in remote locations could minimize their logistic needs on-site. Warehouses of spare and replacement parts that may never be used could be replaced by storing only their designs digitally, not the physical parts themselves. Fundamental problems in computer science about what is computable by digital machines will change. The problems will be reframed in a larger context as what functional hybrid machines are constructible from cyber-physical primitives. The technical approach builds on analogies with compiler technology and supporting algorithmic theories. Experienced engineers may know from experience what is constructible but their experience must be expressed in a language that blends the continuous with the discrete, the cyber with the physics of materials processing. The project addresses broad classes of constructible cyber-physical systems: (1) the development of tools for functional specification and automated co-design of the mechanical, electrical, computing, and software aspects of the device; (2) the design of planning and control algorithms for the assembly of the device and for delivering the desired function of behavior, and tools for the analysis of these algorithms that take into account all the necessary resources, including actuators, sensors, and data streams from the world; (3) the methodology to generate device-specific and task-specific programming environments that provide safeguards for programs written by non-expert users to enable them to operate the machines safely; and (4) the development of novel approaches to the automated production of new devices which may be based on the synthesis of programmable materials with customizable electrical or mechanical properties. This research is highly multidisciplinary, primarily leveraging the disciplines of computer science, electrical and mechanical engineering, materials, and manufacturing science. This project will create a community of interest in this new research area, reach out to young people in grades K-12, engage the national and international community through professional society meetings, and establish new interdisciplinary programs among the participating academic institutions. Like the very successful MOSIS program (www.mosis.com/), this project will disseminate the research results and provide a community resource and service for experimentation with our technologies. ¬ For more information, please visit: http://ppm.csail.mit.edu
Performance Period: 04/01/2012 - 03/31/2019
Institution: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Sponsor: National Science Foundation
Award Number: 1138967
Collaborative Research: An Expedition in Computing for Compiling Printable Programmable Machines
Lead PI:
Vijay Kumar
Co-PI:
Abstract
This project envisions a future desktop technology that prints actual programmable hybrid electro-mechanical devices from only their sketches on-demand, anywhere with the skill of a team of professional engineers using advanced materials. It would transform manufacturing as dramatically as the personal computer democratized information technology and transformed how we communicate. The capability to customize cyber-physical systems on-demand would change how contingencies are planned. Rescuers engaged in humanitarian aid and disaster reliefs in remote locations could minimize their logistic needs on-site. Warehouses of spare and replacement parts that may never be used could be replaced by storing only their designs digitally, not the physical parts themselves. Fundamental problems in computer science about what is computable by digital machines will change. The problems will be reframed in a larger context as what functional hybrid machines are constructible from cyber-physical primitives. The technical approach builds on analogies with compiler technology and supporting algorithmic theories. Experienced engineers may know from experience what is constructible but their experience must be expressed in a language that blends the continuous with the discrete, the cyber with the physics of materials processing. The project addresses broad classes of constructible cyber-physical systems: (1) the development of tools for functional specification and automated co-design of the mechanical, electrical, computing, and software aspects of the device; (2) the design of planning and control algorithms for the assembly of the device and for delivering the desired function of behavior, and tools for the analysis of these algorithms that take into account all the necessary resources, including actuators, sensors, and data streams from the world; (3) the methodology to generate device-specific and task-specific programming environments that provide safeguards for programs written by non-expert users to enable them to operate the machines safely; and (4) the development of novel approaches to the automated production of new devices which may be based on the synthesis of programmable materials with customizable electrical or mechanical properties. This research is highly multidisciplinary, primarily leveraging the disciplines of computer science, electrical and mechanical engineering, materials, and manufacturing science. This project will create a community of interest in this new research area, reach out to young people in grades K-12, engage the national and international community through professional society meetings, and establish new interdisciplinary programs among the participating academic institutions. Like the very successful MOSIS program (www.mosis.com/), this project will disseminate the research results and provide a community resource and service for experimentation with our technologies. ¬ For more information, please visit: http://ppm.csail.mit.edu
Performance Period: 04/01/2012 - 03/31/2019
Institution: University of Pennsylvania
Sponsor: National Science Foundation
Award Number: 1138847
UHDNetCity: User-centered Heterogeneous Data Fusion for Multi-networked City Mobility
Lead PI:
Reza Arghandeh
Abstract
As more of the world's cities suffer from congestion, pollution, and energy exploitation, urban mobility remains one of the toughest challenges that cities face as the process of population growth and urbanization continues. So far, the most common approach for urban mobility characterization focuses on vehicle's spatial and temporal positions. However, urban mobility is a multidimensional characteristic of the city life, experienced as tangled layers of interconnected infrastructures and information networks around people and their needs in a spatio-emporal frame. As a result, the study of mobility should go beyond transportation systems, be customer-centered and merged into other physical systems and cyber networks. This Early-concept Grant for Exploratory Research (EAGER) project is motivated by the need to increase the situational awareness in urban mobility and distribute reliable and timely information to city managers and city residents about issues associated with urban mobility. Through successful collaboration, this project aims to develop a new definition of urban mobility with measurable indices to characterize the urban mobility paradigm around citizens integrating transportation networks, electricity networks, and crowdsourced data. This EAGER project is expected to contribute to the team's established and ongoing effort in the Global City Teams Challenge (GCTC) in collaboration with the City of Tallahassee, Florida. The research team has completed the first phase of the GCTC, and this EAGER project will lay the foundation for the second phase by developing a data-driven approach to characterize urban mobility, which integrates collected data from the transportation network, electricity network, weather, air quality and social media within the City of Tallahassee. This approach will put the City of Tallahassee one step closer in their efforts towards being a "smart city" by improving the city services through measurable mobility benefits, and enhance the quality of life for residents. This approach will be supported by the active GCTC action cluster including Internet2, EDD Inc., and StanTec companies to support the Tallahassee GCTC efforts. The UHDNetCity will be able to bring measurable mobility benefits and improve Tallahassee resident's quality of life in terms of (1) lowering energy consumption by vehicles and infrastructure, (2) reducing congestion, crashes and traveler frustration, (3) improving safety and reliability, and (4) providing a more streamlined, efficient and cost-effective system to operate and maintain city service networks. The UHDNetCity framework combines data fusion, signal processing, and machine learning, to provide a unified mathematical foundation for real-time urban mobility sensing by processing heterogeneous spatio-temporal measurement data and network models. This mathematical framework will lead to bridging the gap between supervised, and semi-supervised machine learning algorithms for urban mobility characterization using hidden data structures in the heterogeneous urban data sources. The UHDNetCity employs a user-driven play-centric design approach to encourage resident's adoption of the urban crowdsourcing dashboards such as DigiTally mobile app developed by the City of Tallahassee and promotes their engagement in the urban mobility management.
Performance Period: 09/01/2016 - 02/28/2019
Institution: Florida State University
Sponsor: National Science Foundation
Award Number: 1640587
CPS: Synergy: Collaborative Research: MRI Powered & Guided Tetherless Effectors for Localized Therapeutic Interventions
Lead PI:
Aaron Becker
Co-PI:
Abstract
Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanners use strong magnetic fields to safely image soft tissues deep inside the body. They offer a unique tool for guiding therapies: images while patient is inside the scanner can localize diseased tissue and guide an intervention with high accuracy. This research controls MRI magnetic fields to wirelessly push millimeter-scale robots through vessels in the body, assemble them into tools, and provide targeted drug delivery or pierce tissue. This will directly impact healthcare, improving patient outcome by enabling unparalleled minimal invasiveness resulting in faster recovery, fewer side effects, and cost-effectiveness. This transformative toolset for multi-agent control will set the foundation for a wealth of medical therapies and surgical interventions. Using magnetic forces of clinical MRI scanners to steer miniature tetherless effectors through human bodies and combining with real-time imaging and operator immersion could transform the practice of minimally invasive interventions. This CPS will seamlessly integrate physical (scanner sensor/actuator, effectors, patient, operator) and cyber (world modeling, combined sensor and effector control, operator immersion). Work entails: (1) Portfolio of parametric effector designs that can be optimized to exploit the constraints of a given clinical procedure. (2) Toolbox of automatic controllers for MRI-based powering and steering of tetherless effectors in the body lumen, self-assembling them into tools, and precision therapy delivery or to pierce tissue. (3) Real-time MRI-based sensing of the physical world for imaging and tracking effectors and tissue. (4) Linked effector and MRI scanner control on-the-fly. (5) Visual/force-feedback human-robot interfacing. The work focuses on two effector classes: an MRI Gauss gun that stores magnetic potential energy released by a chain reaction when robots self-assemble, and an MRI pile-driver that converts kinetic energy from an enclosed sphere into impulses to tunnel into tissue. These approaches will be validated through analytical modeling, scaled hardware experiments, and experiments in clinical MRI scanners.
Performance Period: 01/01/2017 - 12/31/2019
Institution: University of Houston
Sponsor: National Science Foundation
Award Number: 1646566
CRII: CPS: Provably-safe Interventions for Human-Cyber-Physical Systems (HCPS)
Lead PI:
Sam Burden
Abstract
Human interaction with the physical world is increasingly mediated by autonomy, as planes assist pilots, robots assist surgeons, and cars assist drivers. Automation is introduced in such systems to aid humans and guarantee safety and performance. However, such guarantees are hard to provide, since humans may misunderstand the automation's intentions or behave in an unanticipated manner; tragic examples like the crash of Air France flight 447 illustrate that such confusion between pilots and autopilots can lead to catastrophic outcomes. Although some applications may someday yield to full automation (e.g., cars can already drive themselves in traffic), legal and ethical concerns related to safety, accountability, and non-repudiation will ensure humans and autonomy must be capable of handing off control authority at multiple levels in many such systems for the foreseeable future. The principal investigator (PI) proposes to flexibly deploy degrees of autonomy in the presence of human collaborators to compensate for changes in task or environmental conditions. Though PI focuses on robotic teleoperation for concreteness, the anticipated results will lead to general principles that benefit a variety of CPS with humans in-the-loop. Providing safety and performance guarantees for any system involving humans is a lofty goal. PI proposes to achieve this goal by (i) targeting our effort on applications in robotic teleoperation and (ii) integrating findings from multiple established academic disciplines, including engineering disciplines like human factors and control theory that consider the interaction between people and dynamic physical processes, as well as scientific disciplines like neuromechanical motor control and behavioral game theory that account for how humans interact individually and in groups. The proposed work paves the way for provably-safe teleoperated robots distributed in an urban area to provide services in transportation, manufacturing, telemedicine, and emergency response by developing principles for predictive modeling and automated interventions. Unlike the present day, where incompatibilities in aims or means for humans and autonomy lead to performance degradation ranging from significant to catastrophic, the proposed work envisions a future wherein humans can be safely deployed amidst cyber-physical systems in society with high confidence.
Sam Burden
Sam Burden earned his BS with Honors in Electrical Engineering from the University of Washington in Seattle in 2008. He earned his PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences from the University of California in Berkeley in 2014, where he subsequently spent one year as a Postdoctoral Scholar. In 2015, he returned to UW EE (now ECE) as an Assistant Professor, where he received awards for research (Young Investigator Program, Army Research Office, 2016; CAREER, National Science Foundation, M3X program, 2021) and service (Junior Faculty Award, UW College of Engineering, 2021). Sam served as his Department’s (first) Associate Chair for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in 2021–2022 and was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2022. He is broadly interested in discovering and formalizing principles of sensorimotor control. Specifically, he focuses on applications in robotics, neuroengineering, and (human-)cyber-physical systems. Sam lives with chronic illness, and is happy to meet with anyone who identifies as disabled or chronically ill.
Performance Period: 04/01/2016 - 03/31/2018
Institution: University of Washington
Sponsor: National Science Foundation
Award Number: 1565529
EAGER: US IGNITE: A gigabit network and Cyber-Physical framework for Advanced Manufacturing
Lead PI:
J Cecil
Abstract
Manufacturing, and especially advanced manufacturing, is a key element of long-term U.S. prosperity and national security. Advanced manufacturing is at the threshold of the next major revolution catalyzed by advances in networking and Internet technologies. A new generation of agile and 'information based manufacturing' will involve collaborative use of cyber physical resources, simulation and other design/manufacturing tools. In this project, the manufacturing domain of interest is an emerging field called Micro Devices Assembly (MDA). MDA is an emerging advanced manufacturing field involving the manipulation and assembly of micron sized devices. Products in sensors, medical devices (such as heart monitors), surveillance devices and semiconductor manufacturing can be produced using such technologies. In this project an ultra-fast network links distributed cyber physical resources which are used to accomplish the assembly of micron sized devices. The project has two major categories of tools involving the life cycle of micro devices assembly: cyber and physical. Cyber tools will be used to accomplish of assembly planning alternatives, analysis of candidate assembly plans, and Virtual Reality (VR) based simulation of assembly alternatives for target micro designs. Physical tools (or resources) will include manufacturing equipment (to assemble target micro designs), cameras and other related sensors (to guide in the complex assembly as well as to provide feedback during assembly). Such a cyber physical approach demonstrates the feasibility of using ultrafast networks and advanced networking technologies such as Software Defined Networking to support next generation collaborative frameworks for advanced manufacturing. In this system the high-definition multimedia streaming interfaces associated with the VR environment will enable partners to collaboratively propose, compare and refine assembly planning alternatives. The project will use the advanced manufacturing test bed outlined in this project to support teaching of cyber physical concepts and manufacturing frameworks to engineering students at Oklahoma State University; some of the cyber tools developed will also be used subsequently as part of K-12 STEM learning activities involving students in Stillwater, Oklahoma City and the Muscogee (Creek) Nation schools in Oklahoma.
Performance Period: 10/01/2014 - 09/30/2018
Institution: Oklahoma State University
Sponsor: National Science Foundation
Award Number: 1447237
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