CRII: CNS: Integrating Security Tasks into Multicore Real-Time Systems

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2). Many critical systems of modern society (e.g., engine control units in automobiles, logic controllers in manufacturing and power plants, aircraft control and navigation systems, industrial control systems, sensing and perception systems in robot-aided healthcare) have "real-time" (i.e., strict timing and safety) requirements. Emerging Internet-of-things-specific applications (e.g., connected autonomous cars, unmanned aerial vehicles), the trending use of off-the-shelf components, and widespread Internet/network connectivity expand the possibility of security breaches in those critical systems, as revealed by recent real-world attacks. The key innovation of this research is the development of a unified framework to integrate monitoring and detection mechanisms as first-class elements within the design of real-time systems, especially those built with multicore chips. This project will (a) devise novel algorithms, scheduling models, and frameworks to integrate security into multicore platforms that are cognizant of real-time requirements, (b) build design-time tools and system-level plugins to incorporate the proposed techniques into off-the-shelf systems, and (c) develop metrics to carefully trade-off two contending requirements: timeliness and security. The ideas will be validated through experimentation and testing on two off-the-shelf platforms: a multi-terrain rover and a six-degree-of-freedom robotic arm. This research will advance the field by enabling system designers to better understand how to integrate security concerns, with a focus on revealing security trade-offs to ensure minimal (or no) perturbations on real-time properties. Techniques developed as part of this project will make safety-critical, real-time systems more secure and applicable to various domains (e.g., automobiles, avionics, drones, space rovers, power grids, manufacturing plants, medical devices, industrial control systems). The proposed research and educational plans will enhance the knowledge of the next-generation technological workforce in cyber-physical systems and cyber-security. This award supports the training of graduate and undergraduate students, the development of a new security course at Wichita State University, and the integration of research findings into educational materials. All hardware, software, and system implementations (including documentation and tutorials) will be freely available in a public repository (https://github.com/CPS2RL) for educators, scientists, industry personnel, and hobbyists to access and use. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.