Cyber Physical System Protection

Duration: 18 Oct 2013 to 17 Oct 2016
PI and Co-PIs: Prof Aditya Mathur (PI), Assoc Prof Yuen Chau, Asst Prof Martin Ochoa, Asst Prof Nils Ole Tippenhauer, Assoc Prof Jun Sun
Project manager: Angie Ng
Funding agency: Ministry of Defence

The focus of the proposed research is to improve our understanding of cyber threats to Cyber Physical System(s) (CPS(s)) and to develop and experiment with strategies to mitigate such threats. Our approach is based on well understood technical foundations borrowed from the interdisciplinary fields of control theory, artificial intelligence, game theory, networking, and software engineering. The techniques we propose will be evaluated against, and demonstrated in, scaled and/or simulated versions of critical CPS in the iTrust lab environment.

The entire research program under iTrust will be carried out in three phases. Phase I will focus on setting up the iTrust lab and initiating two research tracks aimed at (a) modelling and verifying CPS properties and (b) understanding the nature of threats to CPS when sensors and communications networks are compromised. Phase II will expand the research into the area of attack detection using techniques from machine learning and the design of new robust control mechanisms for networked control of CPS. Phase III will aim at integrating the knowledge gained from existing projects and deriving fundamental design principles to be applied when designing new CPS or upgrading the existing ones. This phased approach will enable iTrust researchers to better understand exactly how to focus on CPS security, assist in the set of the iTrust lab, and allow newly hired faculty to also join in the iTrust research program.