LiU > IDA > Real-Time Systems Lab
ABOUT
MEMBERS
COOPERATION
PROJECTS
PUBLICATIONS
COURSES
OPEN POSITIONS
THESES
ALUMNI

Announcements

[15 Sep 2023] Roland Plaka from RTSLAB was awarded the Best Young Author Award at CRITIS 2023.

[17 May 2022] The prize for the best master thesis in 2021 was awarded David Lantz examined at RTSLAB.

[14 May 2020] The prize for the best master thesis in 2019 was awarded Carl Folkesson examined at RTSLAB.

[14 May 2020] Two Bachelor students supervised for their final year project at RTSLAB won the best Bachelor thesis award for 2019.

[18 December 2019] A paper written at RTSLAB was awarded the best paper award at the UCC2019 conference more ...

[14 May 2018] A bachelor student at RTSLAB was awarded the best thesis award from IDA - Alexander Ernfridsson. more ...

[16 May 2017] A bachelor student at RTSLAB was awarded the best thesis award from IDA - Tim Hultman. more ...

[12 May 2016] A master student at RTSLAB was awarded the best thesis award from IDA - Alexander Alesand. more ...

[12 May 2016] A bachelor student at RTSLAB was awarded the best thesis award from IDA - Mathias Almquist and Viktor Almquist. more ...

[25 May 2015] A master student at RTSLAB was awarded the best thesis award from IDA - Klervie Toczé. more ...

[26 May 2014] A bachelor student at RTSLAB was awarded the best thesis award from IDA - Simon Andersson. more ...

[31 May 2012] A masters student at RTSLAB was awarded the best thesis award from IDA - Ulf Magnusson. more ...

[27 February 2008] A masters student at RTSLAB was awarded the best thesis award from IDA - Johan Sigholm. more ...

[03 March 2004] A masters student at RTSLAB was awarded the best thesis award from IDA - Tobias Chyssler. more ...

[01 Jul 2003] For second year in a row a masters student at RTSLAB was awarded the best thesis award from SNART - Mehdi Amirijoo. more ...

Projects


Current projects: [WASP-NEST-AIR2] [ELLIIT-Protocol] [SSF-ASTECC] [WASP-TripleA] [WASP-PhD-21] [WASP-NTU] [SEAS] [RICS2] [ELLIIT-5G] [SecComm] [Edge] [WASP-Ind] [NFFP7-04890]
Past projects: [IoT-Hub] [RICS] [CENIIT] [NFFP6-00917] [NFFP6-01203] [Green] [SecFutur] [DTN] [HFN] [UAV-MANET] [NFFP4] [SAVE++] [QSRTDS] [Adhoc-Sec] [DeDiSys] [RTDBEngCtrl] [AQOS] [Ceniit-00.11] [COHSY] [COMET] [ECSEL] [NFFP-428] [RoboCup] [Safeguard] [SEDEX] [SEDRES] [SEDRES-2] [Syrf] [TACSim] [TFR-221-1998-729] [TRANSORG]

Current Projects


AI-powered Attack Identification, Response and Recovery (AIR2)

Contact person:
Simin Nadjm-Tehrani
AIR2 is a NEST project (building on Novelty, Excellence, Synergy, and Team) coordinated at LiU (RTSLAB) with participants from KTH (prof. Rolf Stadler), Umeå University (assistant Prof. Monowar Bhuyan), and the division of AI at our department (Associate prof. Jendrik Seipp). The goal of the 20 MSEK 5-year project starting in April 2024 is to enhance the capability of AI-powered Attack Identification, Response and Recovery (AIR2) in future generation of networks that are complex systems with thousands of configuration possibilities. It will focus on software-intensive high-performing communication infrastructures in which:
  • Prevention of cyberthreats is both anticipated and adapted over time,
  • Detection of ongoing adverse scenarios are managed using well-understood components including machine learning-based ones,
  • Evolving scenarios include reactions (autonomous or partially autonomous) that can be understood and explained, despite the potential changes over time (concept drift) and considering the trade-offs involved.
Involved lab members: Simin Nadjm-Tehrani, Vacant.
Funding sources: WASP


Protocol Security Verification using Dynamic Key Structures

Contact person:
Mikael Asplund
Provably secure communication solutions will be needed for the continued trust in future digital services. In this PhD project we propose a new approach to taming the inherent computational complexity of protocol security analysis by providing the means and the tools to leverage model structures (e.g., dynamic key dependencies) in models of security mechanisms and to use these structures to automate security analysis.

Involved lab members: Mikael Asplund, Vacant.
Funding sources:ELLIIT


ASTECC Adaptive Software for the heTerogeneous Edge-Cloud-Continuum

Contact person:
Mikael Asplund
This project investigates methods for the design, automated orchestration and dynamic adaptation of software to enable its autonomous, efficient and secure execution in dynamic, heterogeneous, distributed device-edge-cloud environments, i.e., in multi-provider, multi-service, and multi-criteria scenarios, without relying on a global resource manager. Key techniques to investigate towards a holistic solution include: (1) novel software design techniques for advanced run-time adaptivity, based on extended micro-service interfaces and workflows, including flexible specification of security and fault-tolerance requirements; (2) new techniques for runtime monitoring, analysis and automated modeling of key properties to support distributed dynamic orchestration and adaptivity; (3) new dynamic prediction techniques and a distributed dynamic orchestration and resource manager for the edge-cloud continuum that also manages autonomous migration; and (4) new techniques for cross-layer optimization and automated analysis of trade-offs regarding quality of service, performance, energy usage, cost, security, and fault tolerance.

Involved lab members: Mikael Asplund, Reyhane Falanji
Funding sources: SSF
Project webpage: http://astecc.gitlab-pages.liu.se/


TripleA: Attestation, Authentication and Assurance

Contact person:
Mikael Asplund
Thi project is about the first encounter problem, which is how to ensure that two entities that have previously not interacted with each other can trust each other's information. This is both a deep and relevant problem in today's connected society. Addressing this problem requires new solutions for decentralized trust management where techniques such as Attestation (determining that a remote entity is in a correct state), Authentication (ensuring the correct identity and origin of messages) as well as Assurance (using formal methods to ensure that strict security properties).

Involved lab members: Mikael Asplund, Ahmad Bashir Usman.
Funding sources: WASP WASP-LiU


Where AI meets safety and security

Contact person:
Simin Nadjm-Tehrani
To guarantee that machine learning models yield outputs that are not only accurate, but also robust, recent works propose formally verifying robustness properties of machine learning (ML) models. To be applicable to realistic safety-critical systems, the used verification algorithms need to manage the combinatorial explosion resulting from vast variations in the input domain, and be able to verify correctness properties derived from versatile and domain-specific requirements. Tools to achieve this are only beginning to emerge and are essential to safety qualification processes. In this project we look one step further and consider the process of safety assurance, i.e. formal documentation of absence of harm to humans and environment. The evidence for claiming safety will be based on formalised models that not only provide transparency and accountability for ML based systems, but also show resistance to security threats that impact safety.
Involved lab members: Simin Nadjm-Tehrani, Valency Colaco.
Funding sources: WASP WASP-LiU


Robust Deep Learning Using Symbolic Abstractions

Contact person:
Simin Nadjm-Tehrani
Deep learning (DL) systems have been widely adopted in real-world applications like speech processing and image recognition. Ensuring correctness, robustness, and security of DL systems is of rising importance, considering their integration in safety-critical domains (e.g., autonomous driving, medical diagnostics and robotics). However, unlike traditional software, DL defines a new data-driven programming paradigm that constructs the internal execution function through training data. As a result, many existing quality-assurance techniques cannot be directly applied in DL systems. There are three characteristics of DL systems that pose challenges for ensuring their quality: DL systems are statistical which may not suit safety-critical applications, provide answers without any explanations, and DL algorithms are notoriously fragile: changing a few pixels in an image can lead to a totally different answer. In this project we aim to understand and analyse DL systems, and explore a new technique of symbolic representation of abstractions. The project will be carried out in collaboration with researchers at Chalmers (Prof. Carl Seger) and Nanyang Technical University (NTU) Singapore (Prof. Yang Liu).
Involved lab members: Simin Nadjm-Tehrani, Manali Chakraborty.
Funding sources: WASP WASP-LiU


Sustainable Energy with Adaptive Security (SEAS)

Contact person:
Mikael Asplund
The aim of this project is to enable new digital services in future energy cloud ecosystems through improved security practices, including adaptive and automated risk management. Currently, there is a lack of adequate approaches to manage threats and risks in the new digital energy landscape which involve both safety and security, and which can be continuously adapted and updated throughout the entire system lifecycle. We propose an adaptive integrated safety/security risk assessment approach that enables semi-automated updates and thereby remains valid over time. This approach will allow for a more rapid pace of digitalization of the sector as it removes some of the legitimate concerns associated with exposing critical infrastructure to Internet-related threats.

Project summary (pdf)
Involved lab members: Mikael Asplund, Roland Plaka.
Funding sources:Vinnova


RICS2: Research centre on Resilient Information and Control Systems-Phase 2

Contact person:
Simin Nadjm-Tehrani
The national centre for research on security in industrial control systems (RICS) was successfully ended after 5 years of running and the new phase of the work includes an extention of the activities with the goal of increasing the Swedish competence in the area through three postdoctoral projects. The projects span over
  • a) modelling and analysis of SCADA systems attacks and defences with the aim of quantified risk analysis, specially relating safety and security
  • b) investigating methods for remote attestations in industrial control systems and cyber-physical systems
  • c) investigating the combination of different intrusion and anomaly detection mechanisms for achieving meaningful system level understanding of ongoing attacks and mitigation options.

Involved lab members: Simin Nadjm-Tehrani, Mikael Asplund, Roland Plaka.
Funding sources: MSB


Security for next generation of communication networks

Contact person:
Simin Nadjm-Tehrani
Applications deployed with 5G will be facing several new security challenges. This project will be in collaboration with Prof. Thomas Johansson at Lund University, and spans a variety of research activities in 5G security. The project has a focus on security in the URLLC use case, where the goal is end-to-end latencies of a few milliseconds with optimized use of resources in presence of a chain of viable security mechanisms. It includes development and analysis of cryptographic algorithms and protocols working in low latency and constrained environments and study of implementation weaknesses of security protocols through side-channels. Further activities include investigating the impact of quantum computers on 5G security solutions, and proofs for security of protocols, and cross layer analysis of security with preservation of latency in IoT/CPS applications.
Involved lab members: Simin Nadjm-Tehrani, Navya Sivaraman.
Funding sources: ELLIIT


Secure Communication Mechanisms for Trustworthy Vehicular Coordination

Contact person:
Mikael Asplund
The purpose of this project is to investigate secure communication mechanisms that allow trust to be established between vehicles. Examples of such mechanism are the verification of the physical location of nearby vehicles and also the sharing of that information within the group to enable trust propagation. Key challenges that will be considered include limited and congestion-prone communication channels, lack of ubiquitous communication infrastructure, and the possibility of reputation attacks from malicious entities.
Involved lab members: Felipe Boeira, Mikael Asplund.
Funding sources: CUGS


Resource-efficient edge computing

Contact person:
Simin Nadjm-Tehrani
Future applications with massive sensor deployments, communication, control and potentially humans in the loop, will have large data processing and distributed computing requirements with low latency. This requires a leap change from today’s IoT to cloud solutions that are effectively centralised with a single regime for resource allocation and optimisation. Edge computing promises to bring the computation closer to the end devices and includes architectural differences that both enhance real-time properties and comply with certain security/privacy concerns. In this project the resource management of edge-based applications are studied, both by contributing to a simulation platform, and aiming at realisation of demonstrators.
Involved lab members: Klervie Toczé, Simin Nadjm-Tehrani.
Funding sources: CUGS


Assurance for safety-critical systems that include machine learning

Contact person:
Simin Nadjm-Tehrani
Autonomous systems are promoted as a means of achieving a whole new range of services using the promises of AI and machine learning. These technologies when used in a safety-critical system have a problem: their formal verification of safety, reliability, and availability is not well-studied, and the lack of available methods for evaluating their correctness with respect to specifications is a hinder to deployment in systems that require stringent certification. This project, starts with conceptualisation of assurance in this context means and contributes to development of methods for efficient analysis and assurance for such systems.
Involved lab members: John Törnblom (industrial PhD student from Saab Aerosystems), Ingemar Söderqvist (co-advisor from Saab Aerosystems), Simin Nadjm-Tehrani.
Funding sources: WASP WASP-LiU


Conceptual analysis of architectures for functional scalability, fault tolerance and security

Contact person:
Simin Nadjm-Tehrani
New methodologies that deal with the rapid explosion of volume and significance of software in avionic systems so that added functionality can be created with lower costs is a hallmark of this project supported by the national program within innovation for airborne systems. The project will study model-based development at an early concept design stage so that major architectural choices that may lead to defects with respect to safety, security, and resource adequacy when new functions are added in the future can be easily identified and dealt with.
Involved lab members: Simin Nadjm-Tehrani, Rodrigo Moraes.
Funding sources: NFFP7-04890, Vinnova in collaboration with Saab Aerosystems


Past Projects

IoT för offentlig logistik

Contact person:
Mikael Asplund
Vinnova funded project that investigates the use of IoT for improving logistics in the public sector. The lab is involved in a sub-project together with Östgötatrafiken for making use of public transport traffic data to increase the understand of how congestion appears in the city and how it affects public transport.
Involved lab members: Mikael Asplund.
Funding sources: Vinnova


RICS: Research centre on Resilient Information and Control Systems

Contact person:
Simin Nadjm-Tehrani
RICS is a Swedish national research Centre on Resilient Information and Control Systems. The centre is financed by the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB) to promote long term research and competence in securing systems on which societal functions depend. In an initial phase of the centre the focus will be on the critical information infrastructures on which provision of electricity, water and heat systems depend. The research work will rest on the following three pillars:
  • Data analysis and emulation
  • Risk and vulnerability analysis using attack modelling
  • Real-time detection of adverse events and anomalies
Swedish fact sheet, English fact sheet.

Involved lab members: Chih-Yuan (Sana) Lin, Simin Nadjm-Tehrani, Vacant.
Funding sources: MSB

Project Webpage: www.rics.se

Verifiable real-time coordination for safe cooperative driving

Contact person:
Mikael Asplund
This project is founded on three pillars: the current state of the art in vehicular real-time communication and safety message dissemination, new advances in formal methods allowing previously intractable problems to be solved, and the mature body of work concerning fault-tolerant algorithms for distributed systems. Platooning for heavy-duty vehicles will serve as the main application area and demonstration platform with Scania AB acting as a key reference. The project iterates on the following three objectives:
  • Investigating suitable modelling languages for specification and verification of vehicular coordination algorithms and protocols.
  • Investigating the design, implementation and evaluation of basic fault-tolerant and secure coordination mechanisms that supports reliable coordination mechanisms at the application layer.
  • Investigating strategies for formally proving correctness of coordination algorithms.
Involved lab members: Mikael Asplund.
Funding sources: CENIIT

Project Webpage: Verifiable real-time coordination for safe cooperative driving

NFFP6-00917 - Concept/architecture modelling methodology

Contact person:
Simin Nadjm-Tehrani
Period: 2015-2018
This projects studies new development methodologies for the Integrated Modular Avionics concept to evaluate performance in early stages of design. It combines the model-based techniques both from an application modelling perspective, and a platform modelling perspective. The aim is to support the system engineer in processes that involve migration over multiple platforms/architectures (including multicore), or upgrades with respect to new functionality on the same platform, using well defined interfaces.
Involved lab members: Jalil Boudadjar, Simin Nadjm-Tehrani, Nils Axelsson.
Funding sources: Vinnova


NFFP6-01203 - Hardware and software inter-play in multicore avionics

Contact person:
Simin Nadjm-Tehrani
Period: 2014-2016
This project studies the integration of multicore processors in future avionic systems and in particular, the interplay between software resource requirements and hardware architecture and resource arbitration functions. It aims to develop methods to be used for constructing assurance of determinism in time and space in presence of multicore architecture constraints.
Involved lab members: Andreas Löfwenmark, Simin Nadjm-Tehrani.
Funding sources: Vinnova


Energy-efficient mobile communication

Contact person:
Simin Nadjm-Tehrani
Energy is a valuable resource for battery-driven devices which calls for its optimal utilisation. Energy efficiency has attracted a great attention motivated by short battery lifetimes in part due to wireless interfaces, which account for a large part of the total consumed energy. This project aims to develop tools and methods to support the energy-efficient design and operation of mobile communication. A core element of the project is based on providing solutions to efficiently quantify the energy consumption due to data communication of software components as well as analysing and improving their energy footprint (e.g., mobile applications).
Involved lab members: Involved lab members: Ekhiotz Jon Vergara, Simin Nadjm-Tehrani, Aruna Prem Bianzino.
Project Webpage: http://www.ida.liu.se/labs/rtslab/energy-efficient-networking/

SecFutur

Period: 2010-2013
Contact person:
Simin Nadjm-Tehrani
Security has always been a stepchild to the developers of embedded systems. In the past they were able to rely on physical protection. Due to the connectivity and ubiquity of today's embedded systems this is no longer possible. The aim of SecFutur is to develop and establish a security engineering process for embedded systems. In order to achieve this overall goal SecFutur will provide a set of implemented resource-efficient security building blocks for embedded systems, each addressing a specific complex non-functional requirement, and a security engineering framework that supports the developer in integrating these building blocks into the overall engineering process. SecFutur targets the developer of embedded systems who by using the project results will be able to follow an application driven security engineering approach and increase the overall security of the system. Practical scenarios from several security-relevant application areas will be used in SecFutur to evaluate and demonstrate the advances towards secure resource-efficient embedded systems.
Involved lab members: Simin Nadjm-Tehrani, Maria Vasilevskaya, Laurent Delosières, Massimiliano Raciti,
Funding sources:European Union FP7 program
Project partners:Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology (Germany), Ascom (Switzerland), Infineon Technologies (Germany), Institution of the Russian Academy of Sciences St.Petersburg (Russia), Mixed Mode GmbH (Germany), SEARCH-LAB (Hungary), Universidad de Malaga (Spain), Queensland University of Technology (Australia), Telefonica (Spain).
Project Webpage: http://www.secfutur.eu/

Delay-tolerant networks: protocols, optimisation, and connectivity models

Period: 2008-2011
Contact person:
Simin Nadjm-Tehrani
This project addresses reliable delivery in partition-tolerant and resource-constrained networks in three directions:
  1. designing a multicast algorithm for delay- and partition-tolerant networks,
  2. constructing abstract models of connectivity to systematically study trade-offs in such networks, and
  3. studying the use of resource-utility functions in routing algorithms for optimisation of resources.
Involved lab members: Simin Nadjm-Tehrani, Mikael Asplund, Laurent Delosières
Funding sources: Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet, VR)

Hastily Formed Networks with Heterogeneous Users

Period: 2008-2011
Contact person:
Simin Nadjm-Tehrani
The goal of this work is to study the issues associated with the deployment of Hastily formed networks (HFN) in a disaster management scenario with heterogeneous actor groups and diversified communication and leadership/cultural traditions. The vehicle for the study will be a technical platform in the form of a simulation environment in which algorithms for reliable and secure communication will be developed and tested. The organisation and interaction aspects will be studied with the aim of enhancing interoperability among the diverse end users, and establishing a conversation space.
Involved lab members: Simin Nadjm-Tehrani, Mikael Asplund, Ekhiotz Vergara, Johan Sigholm, Jordi Cucurull
Funding sources: Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB)
Project partners: Department of Technology and Social Change (Tema-T), Department of Science and Technology (ITN), Omegapoint AB
Project Webpage: http://www.ida.liu.se/~rtslab/HFN

Adhoc Networks of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles ( UAV-MANET)

Period: 2005-2011
Contact person:
Simin Nadjm-Tehrani
This project is based on a long term industrial research problem for managing networks of cooperating UAVs connected via adhoc networks. An example application for such networks is time-constrained reconnaisance missions. One of the first issues that distinguish such networked UAVs from other MANETs in the literature are their specific mobility patterns. The project will start by studying suitable mobility models for UAV networks and goes on to model services delivered to mobile ground stations in presence of constraints. The considered constraints will range over safety-related, security-induced, and resource constraints leading to QoS requirements (bandwith optimisation, latency, etc). The work is carried out by an industrial PhD student that is employed at Saab Aerospace.

Involved lab members: Simin Nadjm-Tehrani, Erik Kuiper
Funding sources: SAVE-IT National Graduate School, Swedish Knowledge Foundation (KK Stiftelsen)
Project partners: Saab Aerospace, Linköping

Incremental Verification of Modular Avionic Architectures (NFFP4)

Period: 2006-2009
Contact person:
Simin Nadjm-Tehrani

This project is part of the current national aerospace research program (NFFP4-S4207), with a focus on distributed modular avionics (DMA) architectures and their incremental verification. The project is carried out in cooperation with Chalmers university (Dependable Real-time Systems group), Saab Aerospace (Linköping) and Saab avitronics (Jönköping). Our part of the project concerns assurance of system dependability by focusing on faults within components and the propagation of their effects to other components. We aim to adapt and apply techniques for compositional formal verification of component-based systems to DMA architectures. The project also has a demonstration phase in which developed processes for certification of COTS increments to an existing avionic subsystem will be illustrated.

Involved lab members: Simin Nadjm-Tehrani, Jonas Elmqvist
Funding sources: National Agency for Aerospace Research (NFFP)
Project partners: Saab Aerospace, Saab Avitronics, Chalmers

Component-based design of safety-critical vehicular systems (SAVE++)

Period: 2002-2008
Contact person:
Simin Nadjm-Tehrani
The goal of this project is to establish an engineering discipline for systematic development of component-based software for safety- critical embedded systems. The main innovation of SAVE is the interdisciplinary combination of architectural and component based design with analysis and verification, in the specific context of safety and real-time. The main challenges in component-based development of safety-critical applications are to handle the multitude of conflicting requirements, including safety vs. cost and time-to-market. SAVE will address the above by developing a general framework for component-based development of safety-critical vehicular systems, including
  • Methodology and process for development of systems with components
  • Component specification and composition, providing a component model which includes the basic characteristics of safety-critical components and infrastructure supporting component collaboration
  • Techniques for analysis and verification of functional correctness, real-time behaviour, safety
  • Run-time and configuration support, including support for assembling components into systems, run-time monitoring, and evaluation of alternative configurations.
The project has been entended from its initial 3 year period to encompass a 2-year extension in which the above tracks of research will be integrated and demostrated.

Involved lab members: Simin Nadjm-Tehrani, Jonas Elmqvist
Past members (2002-2005): Jörgen Hansson, Aleksandra Tesanovic
Funding sources: SSF (Swedish Strategic Research Foundation)
Project partners: Mälardalen University (Hans Hansson, Ivica Crnkovic), Royal Institute of Technology (Martin Törngren), Uppsala University (Wang Yi, Paul Pettersson), Several Swedish industrial partners from the motor industry sector, railways, and aerospace (Saab Aerospace in Linköping).

QoS Management of Real-time Data Services (QSRTDS)

Keywords: Real-time Data Services, Real-time Databases, QoS Management, Feedback Control Scheduling, Distributed Systems, Sensor Networks
Period: 2002-2007
Contact person:
Jörgen Hansson

The goal of this project is to develop platforms for real-time data services that involve techniques for managing unpredictability of the environment, handling imprecise or incomplete knowledge of the workload, reacting to overloads and unexpected failures (i.e., those not expressed by design-time failure assumptions), to achieve the performance requirements and temporal behavior necessary for accomplishing the specified tasks.

To address this problem, we aim at developing a management framework for real-time data services that provides guarantees on QoS and QoD in terms of several fundamental performance metrics for real-time applications. In order to provide guarantees, the system must be able to adapt to changes to the external environment, e.g. applied workload and/or execution time estimation errors. Initial research shows that feedback control scheduling is able to deal with dynamic systems that are both resource insufficient and that exhibit unpredictable workloads. Feedback control real-time scheduling defines error in terms for system behavior, i.e. the difference between desired and actual system behavior. The error is continuously monitored, and the system is adjusted to maintain desired performance. Our research focuses on using feedback control scheduling as initial research has been promising in providing satisfactory QoS and QoD guarantees.

Involved lab members: Jörgen Hansson, Mehdi Amirijoo
Funding sources: CENIIT (Center for Industrial Information Technology) and CUGS
Project partners: Sang H. Son, University of Virginia USA and Svante Gunnarsson, Linköping University
Project Webpage: http://www.ida.liu.se/~rtslab/projects/QoSRTDS/

Anomaly detection in Mobile Adhoc Networks (Adhoc-Sec)

Period: 2006-2008
Contact person:
Simin Nadjm-Tehrani
This project aims to develop distributed algorithms for adaptive anomaly detection in resource-constrainted adhoc networks. In particular, we study how detection of attacks and intrusions can be performed with little overhead in terms of computational resources, but utilising the knowledge about the normal behaviour of user applications in terms of network resource consumption, QoS parameters, amd their adaptation to dynamic changes in the network. This work complements emerging trust models for adhoc and P2P networks. Its applications are envisaged where the adhoc solutions are used as an ingredient to bridge fixed infrastructure networks during failures or overloads, or simply to extend the reach of existing critical infrastructures.

Involved lab members: Simin Nadjm-Tehrani, Calin Curescu, Boris Schaefer
Funding sources: National Graduate school in Computer Science (CUGS)

Dependable Distributed Systems (DeDiSys)

Period: 2004-2007
Contact person:
Simin Nadjm-Tehrani
This project is conducted under the Sixth Framework Programme of the European Community and is a Specific Targeted Research and Innovation Project (STREP). The goal of the project is to provide a concept for optimizing dependability in distributed component based systems. It comprises an architecture, well defined technology integration rules, metrics for evaluation, as well as prototype implementations. The aim is not to obtain a new middleware, but integrate and reuse existing off-the-shelf products (as COM, CORBA, EJB). The idea is to use replication for transparent fault tolerance and persistence, the focus being on the trade-off between consistency and availability. For this a combination of synchronous and asynchronous replication is used. The studies are oriented towards measuring the trade-off and configuring it to allow an application-specific optimum of availability. The project also aims at the design and implementation of a fault-tolerant naming service adapted to the context of availability-consistency trading.
Involved lab members: Simin Nadjm-Tehrani, Mikael Asplund
Funding sources: Sixth Framework Programme of the EU.
Project partners: Vienna University of Technology,   Wroclaw University of Technology,   Instituto Technológico de Informatica,   FREQUENTIS G.m.b.H.,   ETRA Investigación Y Desarrollo, S.A.,   Cosylab, laboratorij za kontrolne sisteme, d.o.o.,   XLAB Razvoj programske opreme in svetovanje d.o.o.
Project Webpage: http://www.dedisys.org

Real-Time Databases for Engine Control in Automobiles (RTDBEngCtrl)

Keywords: real-time systems, databases, data management
Period: 2002-2006
Contact person:
Jörgen Hansson

This research project focuses on the data management in software of real-time and embedded systems. This is an important class of systems since they are used in different areas. Distinguishing features of such systems are that the amount of data items in such applications can be high with freshness requirements on the data items and at the same time have deadlines on calculations.

By using a central repository for data management, one can avoid unnecessary storing of data at different processes, which enhances software maintainability and fosters better software evolution due to the simpler structure and the removal of data subscription models. This also simplifies the programmers' tasks since large parts of data synchronization can be performed by the database, and that time constraints, such as data validity, can be enforced by the database.

Current focus of this research project is on maintaining data freshness such that transactions in a database system use fresh data and the required load imposed by making data fresh are state dependent. This means that resources can be better utilized instead of designing the data management for the worst-case scenario. Freed CPU resources can for instance be used for enhanced diagnosis of the system.


Involved lab members: Jörgen Hansson,Thomas Gustafsson, Hugo Hallqvist
Funding sources: Information Systems for Industrial Control and Supervision (ISIS)
Project partners: Mecel AB and Fiat-GM Powertrain
Project Webpage: http://www.ida.liu.se/labs/rtslab/projects/ISIS_DB_EngineControl


Adaptive Quality of Service (AQOS)

Period: 2001-2006
Contact person:
Simin Nadjm-Tehrani

This project aims to combine architectures and algorithms for adaptive management of resource allocation in networked applications. In particular, we study how user requirements in terms of Quality of Service (QoS) can be met by system level resource allocation, when there are several types of uncertainties present. We study algorithms for resource allocation both locally (in one  node) and at a global level. The project started by studying the load control problem for radio network controllers in 3rd Generation mobile telecom, and will continue by studying the general problem in multi-resource multi-criteria settings. We adopt a combination of  techniques from the areas of real-time systems, artificial intelligence, and control theory. The research is conducted in cooperation with researchers from UNCC who are supported by a three year travel grant from NSF.

Involved lab members: Simin Nadjm-Tehrani,Calin Curescu, various masters students
Funding sources: National Graduate school in Computer Science (CUGS),National Science Foundation (USA)
Project partners: University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNCC),Teresa Dahlberg and Kayvan Najarian

Analysis of fault-tolerance in real-time distributed systems (Ceniit-00.11)

Period: 2000-
Contact person:
Simin Nadjm-Tehrani

This project studies the application of fault-tolerant techniques in distributed systems. We study formal models of fault-tolerance for achieving safety (in safety-critical systems) and availability (in telecommunication applications). The work focuses on replication techniques in general, and group services in the case of software intensive monitoring systems, in particular. In this project we will study the impact of other typical demands on a system, e.g. real-time demands and dynamic resource allocation in the achieved levels of fault-tolerance. To this end, trade-off studies are performed to study various approaches for implementing fault-tolerance in the middleware in presence of real-time and resource utilisation requirements.

Involved lab members: Simin Nadjm-Tehrani,Diana Szentivanyi,Calin Curescu
Funding sources: CENIIT (Center for Industrial Information Technology in Linköping)
Project partners: Ericsson Radio Systems

Systems Engineering for Complex, Hybrid Systems (COHSY)

Period: 1994-2000
Contact person:
Simin Nadjm-Tehrani

This project is a multi-disciplinary effort to promote improvements in the system engineering process, in particular systems with heterogenenous components ranging from mechanical, hydarulic and electromechanical elements to software and electronics. The project is organised in a number of tracks including the following three at RTSLAB:

Involved lab members: Anders Törne, Erik Herzog, Asmus Pandikow, Simin Nadjm-Tehrani
Funding sources: Nutek
Project partners: Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, Linköping University, Saab AB, Volvo Aero
Project Webpage: http://hydra.ikp.liu.se/COHSY

COMponent-based Embedded real-Time database systems (COMET)

Keywords: embedded databases, real-time and embedded systems, component-based software engineering
Period: 1994-2000
Contact person:
Jörgen Hansson

The goal of this research is to bridge the gap between embedded systems, real-time systems and database systems, with a particular focus on the software development tools. Significant amount of research has focused on how to incorporate database functionality into real-time systems without jeopardizing timeliness and how to incorporate real-time behavior into embedded systems. However, research for embedded databases used in embedded real-time systems, that explicitly address (i) the development and design process, and (ii) the limited amount of resources in embedded systems is sparse. This type of research inherits the challenges from component-based software engineering, embedded systems and real-time systems. Further, this research explicitly addresses system resource demand for the system in the design of the embedded database in order to minimize system resource usage. At a high level, the goal is to build an experimental research platform for building embedded databases for embedded real-time systems. At a high-level, the platform consists of two parts. First, we intend to develop a component library, which holds a set of methods, that can be used when building an embedded database. Initially, we will develop a set components that deal with concurrency control, scheduling, main-memory techniques. At the next step, we develop tools that, based on the application requirements, will support the designer when building an embedded database using these components. More importantly, we want to develop application tools and techniques that:
  • support the designer in the composition and tailoring of an embedded database for a specific system using the developed components, and where the application requirements are given as an input;
  • support the designer when analyzing the total system resource demand of the compositioned embedded database system; and
  • elp the designer by recommending components and methods if multiple components can be used, based on the application requirements.
Involved lab members: Jörgen Hansson, Aleksandra Tesanovic
Funding sources: ARTES
Project partners: Volvo Construction Equipment Components AB, Upright Database Technology AB,Datex-Ohmeda
Project Webpage: http://www.ida.liu.se/~rtslab/projects/ARTES_EmbeddedDatabases/welcome.html

Real-time Distributed Object Systems (ECSEL)

Period: 2000 -
Contact person:
Simin Nadjm-Tehrani

Research on monolithic real-time systems has resulted in many effective technologies for scheduling and resource management. Multi-processor realisation of real-time systems extend the same technologies, where the end-to-end performance requirements of a system are studied as a central problem via analysis based on parameters for each processor. In this project we propose to study how real-time techniques can be incorporated into open distributed system architectures at design stage, in particular in development platforms such as CORBA. The goal is to facilitate trade-off studies at early design stage, and support component based software development. Examples of interesting trade-offs such as real-time/security and real-time/fault-tolerance are considered.

Involved lab members: Calin Curescu
Funding sources: ECSEL-STEM graduate school

System Safety (NFFP-428)

Period: 2002-2004
Contact person:
Simin Nadjm-Tehrani

This project is part of the current national aerospace research program (NFFP 3), with a focus on system safety and reliability in integrated hardware/software real-time systems. The project is organised in cooperation with the department of electrical engineering (Vehicular systems) and Saab AB. Our part of the project concerns improving system dependability by studies of how faults that lead to system failures can be avoided.  At the early design stage we consider the use of langauges  with formal sematics for specification of system components (in particular reconfigurable components, FPGAs), and the potential for formal verification and automatic code generation techniques. We further study how these techniques can be combined with existing methods for safety analysis (FTA, FMEA) and how consideration of random failures (e.g. radiation) affect the design and verification process.

Involved lab members: Simin Nadjm-Tehrani, Jonas Elmqvist, Jerker Hammarberg
Funding sources: National Agency for Aerospace Research (NFFP)

Intelligent Agents for Interactive Simulation Environments - RoboCup and RoboCup Rescue (RoboCup)

Period: Jan 1999-Dec 2000
Contact person:
Nancy Reed

Interactive simulation environments are considered one of the current promising emerging technologies. We are creating autonomous agents as football players for RoboCup and rescue workers for the RoboCup Rescue simulation environments. This research focuses on the system for specifying the behavior of the agents, the mechanisms and abstractions required for controlling their dynamic behavior, end-user programming of the actors, and the interaction between the agent simulator and the dynamic environment simulator. The work is being conducted in a realistic setting by integrating a prototype of the actors with the RoboCup soccer server and the RoboCup Rescue simulation environment. See also:
Involved lab members: Paul Scerri Johan Ydren
Funding sources: Center for Industrial Information Technology (CENIIT), CENIIT project 99.7 -- Interactive Simulation Environments.
Project Webpage: http://www.ida.liu.se/~nanre/ceniit.html

Intelligent Agents Organization to Enhance Dependability and Survivability of Large Complex Critical Infrastructure (Safeguard)

Keywords: dependability, critical infrastructures, agents
Period: 2001-2004
Contact person:
Simin Nadjm-Tehrani

SAFEGUARD aims to enhance the dependability and survivability of Large Complex Critical Infrastructures (LCCIs), such as distributed electric and telecommunication networks. Modern automation systems underlying LCCIs include different levels of automation, regulation, and control, but "intelligent" functions relating to critical issues such as safety and system survivability are usually monitored or executed by human operators. We are primarily interested in improving dependability and survivability of large infrastructures by:
  • Analysing of the structure and dynamics of LCCIs and their underlying Networked Information Intensive Systems, to identify their vulnerable processes and components, and to model and validate adequate critical indicators of its functionality and integrity, which directly influence survivability and dependability of the whole system.
  • To investigate and develop an organisation of SAFEGUARDs, modelled as a cognitive agent-based structure, and validate middleware component solutions, with the role of an integral supervisory system including an auto-defence against different intrusions, accidental or deliberate. All methods should be error tolerant themselves, such as can be achieved by a step by step bottom up approach.
Involved lab members: Simin Nadjm-Tehrani, Kalle Burbeck , Tobias Chyssler, Tomas Lingvall, Daniel Garpe, Sara G. Andres
Funding sources: EU - IST program
Project partners: University of London (Queen Mary), Aplicaciones en Informatica Avanzada S.A. (AIA-spain), Ente per le Nuove tecnologie, L'Energia e l'Ambiente (ENEA-Italy), Swisscom AG (Switzerland)
Project Webpage: http://www.elec.qmul.ac.uk/safeguard/

Systems Engineering Data Exchange (SEDEX)

Period: January 1996 - March 1999
Contact person:
Anders Törne

The project is directed towards the development of an interface standard which will allow the complete set of tools in design of airplanes and spacecrafts and their avionics systems (hardware, software, mechanical design, and implementation, project management, etc.) to communicate in such a way that an integrated project support environment is available from commercial tools. The interface standard will be possibly based on the STEP interface used in CAD applications, but will be extended to add the semantics appropriate to the aircraft industry.

Involved lab members: Anders Törne, Erik Herzog, Asmus Pandikow
Funding sources: European Commission (contract IST-11953)
Project partners: DaimlerChrysler Aerospace, AEROSPATIALE MATRA Lanceurs, Finmeccanica Anlenia Aerospace-Aeronautics Division, British Aerospace MA&A, SAAB Military Aircraft, EUROSTEP Ltd., Linköpings Universitet, Loughborough University, Technical University of Clausthal, Societa Italiana Avionica
Project Webpage: http://www.ida.liu.se/projects/sedres/

Systems Engineering Data Representation and Exchange Standardisation (SEDRES)

Period: January 1996 - March 1999
Contact person:
Anders Törne

The project is directed towards the development of an interface standard which will allow the complete set of tools in design of airplanes and spacecrafts and their avionics systems (hardware, software, mechanical design, and implementation, project management, etc.) to communicate in such a way that an integrated project support environment is available from commercial tools. The interface standard will be possibly based on the STEP interface used in CAD applications, but will be extended to add the semantics appropriate to the aircraft industry.

Involved lab members: Anders Törne, Erik Herzog, Asmus Pandikow
Funding sources: European Commission (contract IST-11953)
Project partners: DaimlerChrysler Aerospace, AEROSPATIALE MATRA Lanceurs, Finmeccanica Anlenia Aerospace-Aeronautics Division, British Aerospace MA&A, SAAB Military Aircraft, EUROSTEP Ltd., Linköpings Universitet, Loughborough University, Technical University of Clausthal, Societa Italiana Avionica
Project Webpage: http://www.ida.liu.se/projects/sedres/

Systems Engineering Data Representation and Exchange Standardisation - 2 (SEDRES-2)

Period: January 2000 - June 2001
Contact person:
Anders Törne

This project is directed at the development of a data exchange standard which will allow the complete set of tools used in analysis and design of complex heterogeneous systems such as air- and spacecrafts and their avionics systems (hardware, software, mechanical design, and implementation, project management, etc.) to communicate in such a way that an integrated project support environment can be implemented from commercial tools.

The proposed interface standard is developed within the STEP (ISO 10303) framework and is assigned the identifier AP-233. The aim of the project is to drive the standardisation within STEP and to validate the proposed standard through tool interface development and real data exchanges.

The role of RTSLAB in this project is to co-ordinate and harmonize the development of the standard. The SEDRES-2 project is funded by the CEC in the IST programme and is a successor to the highly successful SEDRES project (see SEDRES homepage).


Involved lab members: Anders Törne, Erik Herzog, Asmus Pandikow
Funding sources: European Commission (contract IST-11953)
Project partners: DaimlerChrysler Aerospace, AEROSPATIALE MATRA Lanceurs, Finmeccanica Anlenia Aerospace-Aeronautics Division, British Aerospace MA&A, SAAB Military Aircraft, EUROSTEP Ltd., Linköpings Universitet, Loughborough University, Technical University of Clausthal, Societa Italiana Avionica
Project Webpage: http://www.sedres.com/

Synchronous Reactive Formalisms (SYRF)

Period: 1997-1999
Contact person:
Simin Nadjm-Tehrani

The project is concerned with improved programming environment for the family of synchronous languages (Lustre, Signal, Esterel, and a version of Statecharts). The work in the project is organised in several work packages: combination of imperative and declarative synchronous paradigms, program verification, code distribution and multi-tasking, integrating synchrony and asynchrony, connection with hardware/software codesign, and integration of analog/discrete synchronous design. Our contributions are mainly in the last work package, dealing wit hybrid systems incorporating synchronous controllers.

Involved lab members: Simin Nadjm-Tehrani
Funding sources: Esprit IV - (Long Term Research)
Project partners: INRIA (Renne, Grenoble, Sophia-Antipolis), GMD Bonn, Saab AB, Schneider Electric, Electricité de France, Prover Technology
Project Webpage: http://www-verimag.imag.fr//SYNCHRONE/SYRF/syrf.html

Intelligent Pilots for the TACSI Simulation Environment (TACSIM)

Period: April 1998-Dec 2000
Contact person:
Nancy Reed

Interactive simulation environments are considered one of the current promising emerging technologies. We are creating autonomous agents as pilots for aircraft simulation environments. This research focuses on the system for specifying the behavior of the agents, the mechanisms and abstractions required for controlling their dynamic behavior, end-user programming of the simulated pilots, and the interaction between the agent simulator and the dynamic environment simulator. The work is being conducted in a realistic setting by integrating a prototype of the simulated pilots with TACSI - the tactical aircraft simulator produced by Saab AB. See also the EASE agent development environment homepage and CSIRO RoboCup Applications World-wide.

Involved lab members: Paul Scerri
Funding sources: NUTEK projects 1K1P-97-09677, 1K1P-98-06280, and 1K1P-99-6166.
Project partners: Saab AB, Gripen, Operational Analysis division
Project Webpage: http://www.ida.liu.se/~nanre/nutek-tacsim.html

Formal methods for hardware/software co-design (TFR-221-1998-729)

Period: 1999-2001
Contact person:
Simin Nadjm-Tehrani

The co-design procedure for embedded systems starts from a high level description and applies partitioning algorithms in order to realise the final design as a range of hardware and software components. Common languages for design at the system level includes VHDL and C. In this project we propose enhancing the co-design procedure by adding a formal verification capability to capture early design errors prior to partitioning. For this purpose, formal languages which capture both data-flow and control-flow are explored and the integration of formal verification tools with a co-design environment is proposed.

Involved lab members: Simin Nadjm-Tehrani
Funding sources: TFR (Swedish research council for engineering sciences)

Combining Transactions with CORBA Replicate Groups (TRANSORG)

Keywords:
Period: 2002-2003
Contact person:
Simin Nadjm-Tehrani

This project is part of the European Agents and Middleware (AMI) initiative within the IST program. The goal of the project is to provide insights on the cost of incorporating generic fault-tolerance mechanisms in a middleware. The idea is to relieve the application writer in a distributed (multi-tier client server system) from writing the code that deals with fault tolerance when a server crashes. Instead, provide support in the middleware so that at the conception of the application, the appropriate replication mechanism (warm/cold passive, active), and the required parameter settings can be supported by automatic code generation within the middleware. We have chosen to study CORBA as a generic middleware and to study which performance, code size, state size, and other trade-offs exist in extending the CORBA infrastructure in compliance with the recently proposed FT-CORBA specification. Part of the trade-off study is the overhead (time) when there are no failures and the time taken for fail-over.

Involved lab members: Simin Nadjm-Tehrani, Diana Szentivanyi, Isabelle Ravot
Funding sources: EU - IST program, see here for more info ...
Project partners: EPFL (Lausanne, Rachid Guerrauoi), Ericsson Radio Systems
Project Webpage: http://www.ida.liu.se/~rtslab/TRANSORG/

Last modified February 2024. If you have questions or suggestions for the webpages, contact the webmaster