REU PROJECTs @ FIU ECE

 

Jamming Mitigation via Smart Phone Crowdsourcing

Recently, wireless signal jamming is emerging as a major cyber-security threat to our Nation's broadband communications and public safety capabilities. With the increasing threat of these attacks, jamming detection, localization, and mitigation techniques are critical for reliable communications in future wireless networks. In this project, the undergraduate students will develop efficient jamming mitigation strategies using a number of smart phones under the supervision of Dr. Ismail Guvenc.

 

Qualifications:

-        Strong Android programming skills, with an existing track record of developed Android applications

-        Self-driven and outcome-oriented work attitude

-        Knowledge about wireless, WiFi, LTE, and wireless localization technologies is a plus

 

Project-1:  Crowd-source Based Jammer Detection

Detecting the presence of a jamming signal is the first step toward developing techniques to localize and avoid it. With active jamming strategies optimized to minimize detection probability, this becomes a challenging process. Smart phone users who overhear the jamming signals can provide important information such as the signal strength of the jammer and the (noisy) location of the jammed wireless user, to detect and localize a jammer. The REU student will be involved in the implementation of crowdsource-based jammer detection techniques for various scenarios. The impact of the behavior and the distribution/density of users willing to participate in crowdsourcing for enhancing jammer detection/localization accuracy will be investigated.

 

Project-2: Cooperative Cellphone Localization

A second REU student will work on developing cooperative cellphone localization techniques in the presence of a wireless jammer. In particular, first, WiFi-Direct technology will be used to develop a cooperative localization technique for users in an indoor environment. Then, reliability of cooperative localization will be evaluated when a jammer is introduced. Subsequently, ways of improving the cooperative localization accuracy in the presence of a jammer will be investigated.

 

Contact: Dr. Ismail Guvenc (iguvenc@fiu.edu)

 

Privacy Preservation in Smart Buildings

With the incredible developments in information and communication technologies (ICT), buildings are be-coming equipped with such technologies for achieving energy-efficiency and sustainability. Referred to as Smart Buildings, the goal is to automatically sense the occupancy of building spaces via the existing ICTs (e.g., WiFis) in the buildings and inform building systems to adjust accordingly. Nevertheless, all of these approaches require tracking of the users, which raises privacy concerns due to revealing their identity along with movement habits. The proposed REU project supervised by Dr. Akkaya will tackle this problem and propose solutions that can provide privacy preserving occupancy monitoring in a seamless manner.

 

Qualifications:

-        Strong programming skills in Java and Android with an existing track record of developed Android applications

-        Knowledge about IEEE 802.11, and wireless localization technologies is a plus

 

Project 1: Fingerprinting-based User Localization

In order to design the privacy solutions for the localization and tracking solutions, a localization and tracking mechanism will be designed based on smart phones and WiFi Aps using a fingerprinting approach. Basically, the APs keep the MAC (physical) address of each device along with their signal strength values (RSSI). By looking at these values at different times, one can get an estimate of the location of the user using a pre-defined signal map of the building. The REU students will implement an Android app to determine the location of a user within a building map. They will then extend this to determine the location of all the users that are in the building at the same time.

 

Project 2: Dynamic MAC Address Change for Smart Phones

In this project, the idea is to dynamically change the MAC addresses of the connected/recognized devices to prevent tracking. The student will be responsible for generating acceptable but fake MAC addresses that conform to IEEE standards. These MAC addresses will change each time a new association between a client and an AP is created. The implementation will be done on a smart Android platform.

Contact: Dr. Kemal Akkaya (kakkaya@fiu.edu)

 

Security of Smart Grid

Smart Grid refers to the modernization of the existing power grid to provide efficiency, reliability, and safety. Smart Grid has wireless communication and software platform to control, deliver and meter electric energy to the consumers. Therefore, leaving electric grid vulnerable can be catastrophic. An understanding and awareness has to be developed for future engineers to learn modern grid technologies, its applications, means of security, and standardizations. This project, which will be mentored by Dr. Arif Sarwat, will focus on the security of the newly built Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) and secure integration of Electric Vehicles (EV) to the Smart Grid.

Qualifications: Basic knowledge of power systems and circuit theory.

Contact: Dr. Arif Sarwat (asarwat@fiu.edu)

 

Security in Visible Light Communication Networks

Solid-State Lighting (SSL) devices with multiple light emitting diodes (LEDs) are being heavily deployed and commercialized. It is expected that multi-element SSL devices will soon outnumber the traditional ones. These devices have an additional advantage of fast turn-on and turn-off properties that could be leveraged for free-space optical (FSO) communication at visible light spectrum, referred to as visible light communication (VLC).

 

In this project, mentored by Dr. Nezih Pala, we aim at involving undergraduate students to investigate and develop visible light communication systems for the dual purpose of communication and illumination, with a special emphasis of investigation of challenges in maintaining secure communications.

 

Qualifications: Circuit design, Communication protocols, Programming (Java/C/C++)

Contact: Dr. Nezih Pala (npala@fiu.edu)

 

Reliable and Resilient Smart Grid Operations

 

Project 1: Hybrid Power Systems Incorporating Distributed Generation and Energy Storage

The Smart Grid Test-bed laboratory at the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Florida International University (FIU) was developed and implemented as an integrated hardware-based AC/DC Hybrid power system. This system is capable of producing power in AC (36 kW) and DC form (36 kW). The DC power is implemented on two microgrids connected to the AC network. This hardware/software/ communication - based system includes capabilities for the embedded system implementation of control strategies for generating stations, renewable source controllers and power transfer to programmable load hardware emulators in addition to energy storage facilities. This system is an excellent platform to enable testing and verifying new operation and control ideas. Appropriate software was developed to monitor all system parameters as well as operate and control the various interconnected components in varying connectivity architectures.  The interconnection of alternative energy such as wind farm emulators, PV array and fuel cell emulators in addition to storage are implemented and integrated into this system in hardware and software format. This smart power system grid was developed for different applications as well as for studying smart grid operation, reliability and resiliency concepts. Various control scenarios for system startup and continuous operation in addition to an intelligent energy link integration between the AC and the microgrids were developed.   This platform has many capabilities to perform experimental research and studies in addition to educational benefits using laboratory scale components in addition to commercial hardware to model the realistic behavior of a large power system. It is an excellent base not only for innovative research ideas, but also for teaching power system engineering concepts to students at the undergraduate and graduate levels and training engineers who are interested in testing new ideas for smart power system operation and control in a safe laboratory environment.

 

Project 2: Realistic Design and Prototyping of Power Conversion Modules and Real-time Evaluation

The Energy Systems Research Laboratory is equipped with an isolated chamber which can suppress electromagnetic radiation and measure the pure electromagnetic signals without any external interference. This enables performing tests, verification and conditional monitoring of electrical drives and power electronic converters through state-of-the-art technology for power electronic converters, drives, electric motors and generators, cables and transformers from scales of PCBs to real power like industrial modules. This research can be achieved by integrating numerical and physics based modeling using numerical techniques for electromagnetic interference evaluation for real time applications such as for prediction of radiated and conducted EMI and real time condition monitoring purposes. This work is extended for designing components that achieve national and international EMC standards, dynamic monitoring and diagnosing failures in power electronic modules in the time and frequency domain.

 

Qualifications: Basic knowledge of power systems, communication and circuit theory, fields and waves.

Contact: Professor Osama A. Mohammed (mohammed@fiu.edu)

 

Security of Smart Devices, Internet-of-Things, and Wearable Technologies

The utilization of smart devices (e.g., phones and tablets) and wearable technologies (e.g., smart watches, health and fitness trackers) in our lives is continuously increasing with the emergence of new computing paradigms such as Internet of Things (IoT), Wearables, and Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) devices.  According to some recent studies, by 2017, each person is expected to have on average five devices with an Internet connection. Given this popularity, in todayÕs Internet-centric world, these always-on, always-connected smart devices, IoT and CPS devices, and wearable technologies pose significant security challenges. For instance, an adversary can abuse these devices to access confidential information, spread viruses, and to spam or to conduct a social-engineering attack, possibly harming a legitimate userÕs reputation and other usersÕ interest. Moreover, these devices are key elements of our nationÕs critical infrastructure networks, including power plants, oil/gas pipelines, smart-grid, and nuclear plants. Unfortunately, these devices are under the constant threat of an increasing number of cyber attacks. Hence, it is crucial to understand the threat landscape for these various devices and protect usersÕ valuable assets (e.g., accounts, passwords) from malicious activities.

 

Students in this project will have a chance to learn the fundamental security concepts and investigate the security and insecurity of the smart IoT, CPS and wearable devices. Specifically, students will have a unique opportunity to improve their hands-on using real devices, including: smart watches (Sony, Samsung, LG, Motorola watches), smart thermostats (Google Nest), smart glasses (Google Glass), smart fitness trackers (Microsoft Band), drones (Bebop Drone), Infrared Motion Sensors (Microsoft Kinect, Leap Motion), robotic platforms  (iRobot Create), Embedded Systems (Odrodid, Intel Galileo) while exploring the security capabilities of these devices (e.g., how much information they leak, how much privacy can be achieved). These devices (shown below) will be available to the students during their projects working under the supervision of Dr. Uluagac.

 

 

Qualifications:

-        Comfortable with programming in open source languages and platforms such as Java/C++, Python, and Android platform or prior programming experience with a strong interest and motivation to quickly learn the Android ecosystem,

-        Knowledge/strong interest in security and networking fields is a plus, but not mandatory.

 

Contact: Dr. A. Selcuk Uluagac (suluagac@fiu.edu)

 

Hardware Level Security in Smart Devices and Sensors

It is possible that smart devices and sensors could be counterfeit sensors that could have been built with corrupted hardware or software components without the knowledge of the owner/user of the smart sensors. These smart sensors may participate in the regular data collection transactions, glean important information from unsuspecting benign nodes, and leak such information to nearby or remote enemy units. Hence, in order to investigate and address these attacks, REU students will work with mentor Dr. Bhansali to investigate the security of smart devices and sensors at the hardware level focusing on the intersection of security and MEMS fields.

 

Qualifications: Computer architecture and organization, Programming (Java/C/C++)

Contact: Dr. Shekhar Bhansali (sbhansa@fiu.edu)

 

 

SDN-based Network Infrastructure for Smart Environments

The proposed project will explore the applicability of utilizing network virtualization in Smart Environments. The objective is to create a security layer that connects, manages and extracts information from diverse wireless devices/components to a centralized location for security assessment and evaluation. The concepts and technologies of Software Defined Networking (SDN), with OpenFlow (open-source), enables real-time information extraction, collaboration, and effective security monitoring for centralized decision-making. In this project, the REU students will work under the supervision of faculty mentor Dr. Alex Pons to investigate and develop a software defined network (SDN)-based approach for Smart Environments.

The project consists in developing a working knowledge of SDN with Openflow as it pertains to computer networks. The students will implement a networking environment, which interconnects various common devices, such as tablets, servers, switches, etc. to develop an operational knowledge of the basis of SDN. This will provide the skills to research different alternative to expand these concepts to establish security capabilities into this environment. The objective is to propose security extensions to the SDN and evaluate these extensions using other open source tools and system.

Qualifications:

-        Working knowledge with C++ and Java programming languages and open source software and tools on Windows and Linux platforms.

-        Knowledge/strong interest in security and networking fields.

Contact: Dr. Alex Pons  (apons@fiu.edu)