Planning: DCL EPSCOR: SaTC Frontier: Toward Mitigating Supply Chain Risks in Autonomous Automotive Systems

The security of supply chains is critical to ensuring the safety of systems and infrastructure that society depends on. The autonomous vehicle industry is an important and complex example of a system that (a) has large implications for safety and (b) relies on a wide variety of hardware and software elements in both the cars themselves and the roads they drive on. This makes connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs) an excellent testbed for studying supply chain security questions. This project will support the planning of a large-scale SaTC Frontier proposal to advance science, education, and workforce development around supply chain security for CAVs. The eventual proposal will include identifying key security and privacy risks around CAV supply chains, developing methods to address them, and creating new courses and educational materials to better train a workforce ready to deal with critical supply chain security issues in CAVs and beyond. The project's goal is to develop a fully realized proposal in terms of the scientific questions, team and partnerships, and social impacts to be addressed. To do this the research team plans a number of activities with industry and academic partners. A seminar series and visits between the host institution and potential partners will develop both a better understanding of the problems and the foundation for advisory and research partnerships in the eventual full proposal. A workshop focused on CAV supply chain security associated with a large international conference will bring a wider community together. There are also plans to work with nearby institutions to broaden and widen the team's research expertise, as well as gaining expertise in how to structure and manage large research teams from the leaders of existing SaTC Frontier awards. Through these efforts the team will develop the knowledge, resources, and people required to create a high-quality, large-scale proposal. 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.