Cyber resilience of connected and autonomous transportation systems (Phase I): State-of-the-art and research gaps

Two trends are transforming transportation systems. First, the increasing complexity of cyber-physical technological advances, such as connected and autonomous mobility, which seamlessly integrate computation, communication, sensing, and control, holds great promise for societal and economic benefits. Second, these tightly coupled cyber-physical interdependencies can be self-defeating as they can pose new exposures to accelerating disruptions in cyber space (i.e., cyber-attacks), raising concerns about the safety, security, and privacy of the transportation system users. In view of these two overlapping trends, bolstering the cyber-physical resilience of transportation systems is crucial. At its core, achieving cyber-physical resilience entails addressing its two distinguishing characteristics: (1) double-edged cyber-physical couplings, and (2) non-stationary uncertainties of cyber disruptions. The double-edged cyber-physical couplings require explicit investigation of both the bright and dark sides of these couplings, as well as their interactions through multi-agent modeling. For instance, computation (e.g., machine learning) can open doors to both cyber-attack and cyber-defense in autonomous mobility systems, while communication (e.g., connected/networked vehicles and infrastructure) can propagate cyber disruptions despite increasing network redundancy. The second distinguishing feature of cyber-physical resilience is that cyber-physical disruptions lead to non-stationary uncertainties, where adversaries can adapt cyber-attacks to cyber-defense mechanisms over time. This renders the classical resilience methods ineffective as they largely rely on the past experience of similar disruptions to tackle future ones assuming the associated uncertainties are stationary. Addressing the above two inherent features of cyber-physical resilience requires transcending the conventional and siloed literature on cyber-physical systems and resilience. Current research on cyber-physical systems focuses on leveraging the inner workings of cyber-physical couplings to enhance engineered systems. Yet the inverse problem of tackling external forces (disruptions) exploiting the same couplings to damage these systems is underexplored. To address, this proposed project aims to survey the current research on transportation cyber-physical resilience, find research gaps, and suggest directions for future research. Through comprehensive and systematic investigation of this research area of national priority, this proposed project will lay the foundation for a series of future projects by the PI on the cyber-physical resilience of connected and autonomous transportation systems.

• Record URL:
  • https://ppms.cit.cmu.edu/projects/detail/547

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Active
• Funding: $59367
• Contract Numbers:

  69A3552344811

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

  University Transportation Centers Program
  Department of Transportation
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Managing Organizations:

  Carnegie Mellon University

  Pittsburgh, PA  United States 

  Safety21 University Transportation Center

  Carnegie Mellon University
  Pittsburgh, PA  United States  15213
• Project Managers:

  Stearns, Amy

• Performing Organizations:

  University of Texas Rio Grande Valley

  1201 W. University Dr
  Edinburg, TX  United States  78539
• Principal Investigators:

  Noruzoliaee, Mohamadhossein

• Start Date: 20240701
• Expected Completion Date: 20250630
• Actual Completion Date: 0
• USDOT Program: University Transportation Centers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Autonomous vehicles; Computer security; Connected vehicles; Forecasting; Vehicle safety
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Highways; Planning and Forecasting; Safety and Human Factors; Vehicles and Equipment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01933409
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Safety21 University Transportation Center
• Contract Numbers: 69A3552344811
• Files: UTC, RIP
• Created Date: Oct 13 2024 10:52AM