EFRI-ARESCI: Foundations for Reconfigurable and Autonomous Cyber-Physical Systems: Cyber-Cities and Cyber-Universities

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PI: Munther A. DahlehInstitution: Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyProposal Number: 0735956EFRI-ARESCI: Foundations for Reconfigurable and Autonomous Cyber-Physical Systems: Cyber-Cities and Cyber-UniversitiesThis project, with investigators from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the California Institute of Technology, focuses on new theoretical foundations for autonomously reconfigurable cyber-physical systems. Motivated by the abundance of applications of Cyber-Physical Systems, including critical networked infrastructures, emergency response systems, and distributed mobile robotics, the project pursues fundamental and applied research towards sound mathematical, computational, and technological foundations to address issues of autonomy and reconfigurablity as such systems react to unexpected disruptions. In conjunction, the investigators develop real-life testbeds of a cyber-city and a cyber-campus, which identify a set of challenge problems for the research program and offer platforms for testing the technologies developed under this project. The project consider a paradigm shift that hinges on the following methods: (i) mechanism design which provides a framework for interconnections of distributed autonomous systems by designing local utility functions that are derived from a global performance objective; (ii) distributed decision methods under communication constraints which address various networking scenarios; (iii) non-Bayesian methods which create the appropriate flexibility necessary to deal with unexpected disruptions as contrasted to Bayesian methods that require models of all adversaries; and (iv) approximation and relaxation methods which allow constructing simplified (abstracted) models of interconnections from which limitations on reliability and robustness can be derived.The proposed approach will provide optimal efficient response strategies for emergency response and other systems. The test bed will provide another real-life example for prediction and management of liveliness of large networked cities. The project will create opportunities for students to interact with major industrial companies in the U.S. and abroad. Project outcomes will be integrated into the first-year graduate curriculum in the systems area at both MIT and Caltech. Through MIT's OpenCourseWare initiative, the investigators intend to make these developments accessible to interested parties. Plans also include outreach activities to local K-12 schools.