Electronics designed for use in aerospace vehicles.
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Abstract:
The objective of this research is to develop a theory of "ActionWebs", that is, networked embedded sensor-rich systems, which can be tasked to coordinate multiple decision- makers. The approach is to first identify models of ActionWebs using stochastic hybrid systems, an interlinking of continuous dynamical physical models with discrete state representations of interconnection and computation. Second, algorithms will be designed for tasking individual sensors, based on information objectives for the entire system.
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This project addresses highly dynamic Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) understood as systems where a computing delay of a few milliseconds or an incorrectly computed response to a disturbance can lead to catastrophic consequences. Such is the case of advanced safety systems on passenger cars, unmanned air vehicles performing critical maneuvers such as landing, or disaster and rescue response bipedal robots rushing through the rubble to collect information or save human lives.
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The objective of this research is to create tools to manage uncertainty in the design and certification process of safety-critical aviation systems. The research focuses on three innovative ideas to support this objective. First, probabilistic techniques will be introduced to specify system-level requirements and bound the performance of dynamical components. These will reduce the design costs associated with complex aviation systems consisting of tightly integrated components produced by many independent engineering organizations.
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This cross-disciplinary project brings together a team of engineering and computer science researchers to create and demonstrate the value of new techniques for ensuring that systems comprised of hardware, software, and humans will perform in a synergistic and safe manner.
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Processors in cyber-physical systems are increasingly being used in applications where they must operate in harsh ambient conditions and a computational workload which can lead to high chip temperatures. Examples include cars, robots, aircraft and spacecraft. High operating temperatures accelerate the aging of the chips, thus increasing transient and permanent failure rates. Current ways to deal with this mostly turn off the processor core or drastically slow it down when some part of it is seen to exceed a given temperature threshold.
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The objective of this research is to develop tools for comprehensive design and optimization of air traffic flow management capabilities at multiple spatial and temporal resolutions: at a national airspace-wide scale and one-day time horizon (strategic time- frame); and at a regional scale (of one or a few Centers) and a two-hour time horizon (tactical time-frame).
The following results were obtained in Year 4 of the project:
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The verification of hybrid systems requires ways of handling both the discrete and continuous dynamics, e.g., by proofs, abstraction, or approximation. Fundamentally, however, the study of the safety of hybrid systems can be shown to reduce constructively to the problem of generating invariants for their differ- ential equations. We recently focused on this core problem. We study the case of algebraic invariant equation, i.e. invariants described by a polynomial equation of the form p = 0 for a polynomial p.
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During the development process of CPS, an analysis of whether the system operates safely in its target environment is of utmost importance. This entails two interconnected research goals in the research areas of system design and system verification, which tie together research in formal verification of CPS with research on knowledge representation and reasoning in multi-agent systems:
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CyberPhysical Systems (CPS) that self-modify to improve performance or repair damage often rewrite the modular relationships that make system modeling or Verification and Validation (V&V) possible. In this project, we are exploring methods to create self- modifying CPS systems that, in addition to self-improving or self-repairing, are also capable of maintaining system models that support the use of V&V techniques.
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Wireless sensor-actuator networks (WSAN) are systems consisting of numerous sensing and actuation devices that interact with the environment and coordinate their activities over a wireless communication network. WSANs represent an important class of cyber-physical system (CPS) found in our national civil infrastructure. This project addresses the issue of resilience in WSANs.
