Events Calendar

Closing-the-loop with Cyber Physical Systems

Speaker: Rahul Mangharam, University of Pennsylvania

Talk Title: Closing-the-loop with Cyber Physical Systems

Abstract: Cyber-Physical Systems are the next generation of embedded systems with the tight integration of computing, communication and control of “messy” plants. I will describe our recent efforts in modeling for scheduling and control of closed-loop Cyber-Physical Systems across the domains of medical devices, energy-efficient buildings, wireless control networks and programmable automotive systems.

In medical devices: the design of bug-free and safe software is challenging, especially in complex implantable devices that control and actuate organs whose response is not fully understood. Safety recalls of pacemakers and implantable cardioverter defibrillators between 1990 and 2000 affected over 600,000 devices. Of these, 200,000 or 41%, were due to software issues that continue to increase in frequency. There is currently no formal methodology or open experimental platform to test and verify the correct operation of medical device software within the closed-loop context of the patient. I will describe our efforts to develop the foundations of formal modeling, synthesis and development of verified medical device software and systems from verified closed-loop models of the pacemaker and the heart (more details here.)

In buildings: heating, cooling and air quality control systems operate independently of each other and frequently result in temporally correlated energy demand surges. As peak power prices are 200-400 times that of the nominal rate, this uncoordinated activity is both expensive and operationally inefficient. While several approaches for load shifting and model predictive control have been proposed, we present an alternative approach to fine-grained coordination of energy demand by scheduling energy consuming control systems within a constrained peak power while ensuring custom climate environments are facilitated. This project includes scheduling of energy control systems, sensing-based reduced order modeling of buildings and tools for integrated modeling and controls for energy-efficient buildings.

Biography: Rahul Mangharam is the Stephen J Angello Chair and Assistant Professor in the Dept. of Electrical & Systems Engineering and Dept. of Computer & Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania. He directs the Real-Time and Embedded Systems Lab at Penn. His interests are in real-time scheduling algorithms for networked embedded systems with applications in automotive systems, medical devices and industrial control networks.

He received his Ph.D. in Electrical & Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University where he also received his MS and BS in 2007, 2002 and 2000 respectively. In 2002, he was a member of technical staff in the Ultra-Wide Band Wireless Group at Intel Labs. He was an international scholar in the Wireless Systems Group at IMEC, Belgium in 2003. He has worked on ASIC chip design at Marconi Communications (1999) and Gigabit Ethernet at Apple Computer Inc. (2000). Rahul received the 2013 NSF CAREER Award, 2012 Intel Early Faculty Career Award and was selected by the National Academy of Engineering for the 2012 US Frontiers of Engineering.

Host: Paul Bogdan

Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Annie Yu