CAREER: Towards Fault-tolerant Edge Computing for Cyber-Physical Systems: Distributed Primitives for Coordination under Cyber Attacks

边缘计算是一种新兴范例，它通过在用户处或用户附近分配一系列（边缘）服务器来扩展云计算，以提供必要的网络、存储和计算服务。网络物理系统（Cyber-physical system， CPS）将物理设备连接到互联网，并相互连接。本研究探讨边缘计算与CPS的结合，即基于边缘的CPS。它吸引了学术界和工业界的大量关注，因为它有望从根本上改变人们与工程系统交互的方式。一个基本要素——对容错分布式原语的研究——在文献中仍然缺失。本研究的重点是分布式共识原语，它允许节点集合作为一个连贯的实体在各种故障和网络攻击的存在下工作。具体来说，有三个相互关联的任务：(i)确定基于边缘的CPS的基本属性、限制和权衡；（ii）设计可自动适应不断变化的条件和不同的网络攻击的算法，以保持良好的性能；(3)设计和实现一个真实的模拟器来研究实际场景下的性能。预期的结果将为基于边缘的CPS提供高效和容错的服务，从而允许在CPS应用中进行更多创新。这项研究旨在通过确定一组原则、容错工具和分析来设计分布式容错原语，从而提高知识水平。这项工作将强调允许实际实现的模型和原语，并计划实际演示它们的容错性和性能优势。边缘计算和CPS预计将成为下一代基础设施的关键组成部分，因此使基于边缘的CPS具有容错性可以产生大规模的好处。相反，由于缺乏基础理解而错失的改进机会可能会对性能和容错性造成重大影响。这项研究通过确定取舍和限制来帮助解决这些问题。拟议中的研究还计划开发新的分布式系统教学材料，PI计划通过波士顿学院的课程和向公众提供的在线教程来教授这些材料。此外，研究和推广工作将为工业界和学术界设计基于边缘的CPS的容错原语提供原则，从而造福社会；加强学术界与工业界之间的伙伴关系；让妇女、残疾人和代表性不足的群体参与STEM；提高公众的科学素养和公众对科学技术的参与。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Edge computing is an emerging paradigm that extends cloud computing by allocating a range of (edge) servers at or near the user to provide necessary networking, storage, and computing services. Cyber-physical systems (CPS) connect physical devices to the Internet and to each other. This research explores the marriage between edge computing and CPS, namely edge-based CPS. It has attracted a tremendous amount of attention from both academia and industry because it is expected to fundamentally change the way people interact with engineered systems. One essential element –the study of fault-tolerant distributed primitives– is still missing in the literature. This research is focused on distributed consensus primitives that allow a collection of nodes to work as a coherent entity in the presence of various failures and cyberattacks. Concretely, there are three interrelated tasks: (i) identifying fundamental properties, limitations, and trade-offs in the context of edge-based CPS; (ii) designing algorithms that automatically adapt under changing conditions and varying cyberattacks to maintain good performance; and (iii) designing and implementing a realistic simulator to study performance under practical scenarios. The expected outcomes will enable efficient and fault-tolerant services for edge-based CPS, allowing more innovation in CPS applications. This research is expected to advance the state of knowledge by identifying a set of principles, fault-tolerance tools, and analyses for designing distributed fault-tolerant primitives. The work will emphasize models and primitives that allow for practical implementation, with plans for realistic demonstrations of their fault-tolerance and performance advantages. Edge computing and CPS are expected to be key components of next-generation infrastructure, so making edge-based CPS fault-tolerant can yield large-scale benefits. Conversely, missed opportunities for improvements caused by a lack of foundational understanding could have significant performance and fault-tolerance consequences. This research helps address these issues by identifying trade-offs and limitations. The proposed research also plans to develop new pedagogical material on distributed systems that the PI plans to teach, both through courses at Boston College and in online tutorials made available to the public. In addition, the research and outreach work will benefit society by providing principles to help industry and academia design fault-tolerant primitives for edge-based CPS; increasing partnerships between academia and industry; involving women, persons with disabilities, and underrepresented groups in STEM; and increasing public scientific literacy and public engagement with science and technology.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.