Research Initiatives

Image credit:
Elena Zhukova

Dynamic Distributed Systems

Focus:

Dynamic Distributed Systems is focused on networking technology for next generation Internet applications with an emphasis on how to adapt Internet technology for secure and safety-critical environments and how to manage highly dynamic systems.

Industrial Cyber-Physical Systems

Mission: 

The goal of iCyPhy (pronounced eye-sigh-fie) is to conduct pre-competitive research on architectures and design, modeling, and analysis techniques for cyber-physical systems, with emphasis on industrial applications. Cyber-physical systems integrate computing, networking, and physical components. Applications include transportation systems, automation, security, smart buildings, smart cities, medical systems, energy generation and distribution, water distribution, agriculture, military systems, process control, asset management, and robotics.

The CPS intellectual challenge is about the intersection, not the union, of the physical and the cyber. This intersection combines engineering models and methods from mechanical, environmental, civil, electrical, biomedical, chemical, aeronautical and industrial engineering with the models and methods of computer science and engineering. iCyPhy research is founded on the conviction that these models and methods do not combine easily, and that consequently CPS constitutes a new engineering discipline that demands its own models and methods.

Human Intranet

Vision:

With the explosive growth of the ”smart” society, enormous amounts of information are instantaneously available in the enhanced world around us, or the cyberworld beyond. Hence one may wonder if the traditional human input/output modalities have the necessary bandwidth or expressiveness to effectively deal with the increasing pace of an “augmented world”.  One possible answer is to use the same technology advances that have enabled the “sensory swarm” to change, enhance or augment the way humans interact with the world around it and the cyberworld beyond, as well as their fellow human beings and themselves. Envision a “Human Intranet” [Ra15] that harvests the capabilities of all the devices we carry around us, on us, or inside us, to create a single open and integrated platform, opening the door for true innovation and creativity. This platform could help to address how us humans deal with an ever-smarter world, introspect on how well we are functioning ourselves, or even extend our capabilities. While truly exciting from an opportunity perspective, it also raises many questions such as privacy, safety and ethics.