Events Calendar

EE Seminar: Analysis, Design, and Operation of Secure Cyber-Physical Systems

Speaker: Fabio Pasqualetti, Assistant Professor, University of California, Riverside

Talk Title: Analysis, Design, and Operation of Secure Cyber-Physical Systems

Abstract: Today's cyber-physical systems are the building blocks of smart and citizen-centric applications that will revolutionize the way people interact with the urban environment. Smart systems, cities, and communities will emerge, in which advanced levels of autonomy hold the promise of greater efficiency, reliability and sustainability in areas of national interest and social need, such as health, energy, and transportation. In this new realm of applications, however, enhanced connectivity and advanced autonomy will also pose novel and significant risks to people and the infrastructure, including safety, security, and privacy.

In this talk, I present a unified framework for the analysis of fundamental vulnerabilities affecting cyber-physical systems, the design of targeted detection and protection schemes, and the construction of systems that are provably resilient to accidental malfunctions and malicious attacks. I show how cyber-physical security differs from well-established disciplines, including cyber security and fault tolerance, and how our control- and graph-theoretic methods complement existing security practices to fully protect cyber-physical systems. Further, I reveal a novel class of integrity attacks against smart power grids, and show how these attacks lead to the formulation of novel sparse network control problems, which we also solve. Finally, I discuss directions of future research and open questions in cyber-physical security.

Biography: Fabio Pasqualetti is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Riverside. He completed a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Mechanical Engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 2012, a Laurea Magistrale degree (M.Sc. equivalent) in Automation Engineering at the University of Pisa, Italy, in 2007, and a Laurea degree (B.Sc. equivalent) in Computer Engineering at the University of Pisa, Italy, in 2004. He received a Young Investigator Program award from ARO in 2017, and the 2016 TCNS Outstanding Paper Award from IEEE CSS. His main research interest is in secure control systems, with application to multi-agent networks, distributed computing, and power networks. Other interests include computational neuroscience, vehicle routing, and combinatorial optimization.

Host: Mihailo Jovanovic, mihailo@usc.edu

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

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Mayumi Thrasher