Power system blackouts occur due to system-wide instability brought forth through a combination of dynamic events. Due to availability of system-wide synchrophasor data, it has become possible to conceive and apply real-time protection and control schemes that detect causes and symptoms of instabilities, and respond to arrest the progression of blackouts. However, detailed dynamic data from an actual blackout would be desirable for validation of such schemes. This poster describes the process of dynamically simulating the September 8, 2011 blackout in the Southwestern United States.

Abstract: Most future CPS systems will represent a complex, messy mix of hardware, software and human interactions – and may produce dangerous instabilities quicker than some external controller can react. The specific focus and motivation of this project concerns modeling and understanding the dynamics of such CPS that are large and evolve in a decentralized way due to changing market conditions, yielding a system comprising many heterogeneous components that may have incompatible communication protocols (e.g.

The nation’s critical infrastructures are increasingly dependent on systems that use computers to control vital physical components.  Imagine if you lose electric power, your water stops flowing, airplanes stop flying, medical devices stop working, and chemical plants explode.  These are all examples of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) that are vulnerable to attack through their computer systems, through their physical properties such as power flow, water flow, chemistry, etc., or through both.

The accelerating pace of advances in sensing, communications, and computation provides significant opportunities for enhancing mobility and safety in the transportation system. Many challenges, however, must be tackled for a smooth transition in the deployment of such technologies. This research develops an Intelligent Intersection Control System (IICS) for both Connected/Automated Vehicles (CAVs) and conventional vehicles in the traffic stream.

The purpose of this project is to develop, simulate and test through targeted vehicle and roadway infrastructure field test experiments a traffic operating system (TOS) that organizes existing computation, communication and automotive technologies to minimize congestion by increasing traffic throughput and to enhance safety by reducing driver errors through the use of cooperative adaptive cruise control strategies.

The goal of this project is to create an integrative framework for the design of coupled biological and robotic systems that accommodates system uncertainties and competing objectives in a rigorous, holistic, and e­ffective manner. The design principles are developed using a concrete, end-to-end application of tracking and modeling fish movement with a network of gliding robotic fish. The proposed robotic platform is an energy-efficient underwater gliding robotic fish that travels by changing its buoyancy and mass distribution (gliding) or by flapping tail fin (swimming).

For this project, we are building tools and verification techniques that check modern cyberphysical systems (CPSs) and Internet of Things (IoT) systems for correctness in order to decrease the likelihood of behavior that may lead to various vulnerabilities, including those related to security.   In particular, we intend to create a suite of verification tools for design-time, compile-time, and run-time checking of these systems.  Some of these tools will be software-oriented, but others will explore hardware-support for checking correct execution of deployed systems.

Large-scale networked systems (such as the power grid, the internet, multi-robot systems, and smart cities) consist of a large number of interconnected components. To allow the entire system to function efficiently, these components must communicate with each other and use the exchanged information in order to estimate the state of the entire system and take optimal actions.

A method for achieving lane-level localization in global navigation satellite system (GNSS)-challenged environments is presented. The proposed method uses the pseudoranges drawn from unknown ambient cellular towers as an exclusive aiding source for a vehicle-mounted light detection and ranging (lidar) sensor. The following scenario is considered. A vehicle aiding its lidar with GNSS signals enters an environment where these signals become unusable. The vehicle is equipped with a receiver capable of producing pseudoranges to unknown cellular towers in its environment.