Security of Cyberphysical Systems

Friday, Apr. 17, 11:00 a.m.
TI Auditorium (ECSS 2.102)

Dr. P.R. Kumar
Texas A&M University

ABSTRACT: The coming decades may see the large-scale deployment of networked cyberphysical systems to address global needs in areas such as energy, water, health care and transportation. However, as recent events have shown, such systems are vulnerable to cyberattacks.

The speaker will revisit classical linear systems theory, developed in more innocent times, from a security conscious, even paranoid, perspective. He will then present a general technique called “dynamic watermarking” for detecting any sort of malicious activity in networked systems of sensors and actuators. Finally, the speaker will present a field test on an automobile, an experimental demonstration of this technique on a test track, a process control system and a simulation study of defense against an attack on automatic gain control in a synthetic four-area power system.

BIOGRAPHY: Dr. P.R. Kumar is currently at Texas A&M University, where he is a University Distinguished Professor, a Regents Professor and holder of the College of Engineering Chair in Computer Engineering. His current areas of research include cyberphysical systems, security, privacy, unmanned aerial system traffic management, 5G, wireless networks, machine learning and power systems. Previously, Kumar served in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Coordinated Science Laboratory at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) as well as the math department at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

He is a member of the United States National Academy of Engineers, The World Academy of Sciences and Indian National Academy of Engineers. He was awarded a Doctor Honoris Causa by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. He received the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Field Award for Control Systems, the Donald P. Eckman Award of the American Automatic Control Council, the Ellersick Prize of IEEE Communications Society, the Outstanding Contribution Award of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Special Interest Group on Mobility of Systems, Users, Data and Computing (SIGMOBILE), the Infocom Achievement Award, and the SIGMOBILE Test-of-Time Paper Award. He is a fellow of IEEE and ACM.

Kumar is a Gandhi Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, an honorary professor at IIT Hyderabad, and leader of a guest chair professor group at Tsinghua University in Beijing. He was awarded a Distinguished Alumnus Award from IIT Madras, Alumni Achievement Award from Washington University, St. Louis, and a Drucker Eminent Faculty Award from UIUC. He studied at IIT Madras and Washington University, St. Louis.