CPS Events
Runtime Verification with Copilot and Ogma
Abstract
Ultra-critical systems require high-level assurance, which cannot always be guaranteed in compile time. The use of runtime verification (RV) enables monitoring these systems in runtime, to detect property violations early and limit their potential consequences. However, the introduction of monitors in ultra-critical systems poses a challenge, as failures and delays in the RV subsystem could affect other subsystems and threaten the mission as a whole. In this talk we discuss two systems: Copilot 3, a stream-based runtime verification language for real-time embedded systems, and NASA's Ogma, a tool to transform high-level specifications into Copilot monitors. When used in combination, the toolchain can be used to translate structured natural language requirements into C code with static memory requirements, which can be compiled to run on embedded hardware. Apart from generating standalone monitors, our tools generate self-contained units ready to be integrated in NASA Core Flight System cFS and Robot Operating System (ROS2) applications.
Bio
Dr. Ivan Perez is a senior research scientist contractor at NASA Ames Research Center, and has been a member of the NASA Formal Methods Group since 2018. Dr Perez investigates the application of formal methods to problems in aerospace, with particular focus on runtime verification of unmanned aerial vehicles. Prior to joining NASA, Dr. Perez founded and led Keera Studios, the first mobile Haskell game programming company in the world, and Cubilabs.com, a functional programming company focused on business applications. Over the last two decades, Dr. Perez has also worked as a programmer and researcher for the High Performance Computing Center (Germany), IMDEA Software (Spain), the Technical University of Madrid (Spain), and the University of Twente (Netherlands), as well as for multiple functional programming companies. Dr. Perez completed his PhD in Computer Science at the University of Nottingham (UK), which focused on testing and functional programming applied to games and user interfaces. He also holds a Master's Degree in Computational Logic and a Degree of Engineer in Computer Science, both from the Technical University of Madrid.
Real-time Motion Planning and Predictive Control by Mixed-integer Programming for Autonomous Vehicles
Abstract
A lot of progress has been made in the development of computational algorithms and software tools for optimization-based motion planning and control of (semi-)autonomous systems. There exist many efficient convex quadratic programming (QP) algorithms for model predictive control (MPC) of linear or linearized systems, as well as sequential convex programming (SCP) algorithms for MPC of smooth nonlinear systems. Motivated by these successes, a relatively new trend in the control community relates to the development and application of mixed-integer programming (MIP) for real-time motion planning and decision making, including both continuous and discrete variables. In this talk, I present some recent work on a tailored branch-and-bound method for real-time motion planning and decision making on embedded processing units. In addition, I will discuss two applications related to automated driving and traffic control.
Bio
Rien Quirynen received the Bachelor’s degree in computer science and electrical engineering and the Master’s degree in mathematical engineering from KU Leuven, Belgium. He received a four-year Ph.D. Scholarship from the Research Foundation–Flanders (FWO) in 2012-2016, and the joint Ph.D. degree from KU Leuven, Belgium and the University of Freiburg, Germany. Since the start of 2017, Dr. Quirynen joined Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories (MERL) in Cambridge, MA, USA, where he is currently a principal research scientist. His research focuses mainly on numerical optimization algorithms for decision making, motion planning and control of autonomous systems.
Measuring and enhancing network resilience; performance metrics and defense strategies
Abstract
Resilience, understood as the ability of a network to carry out its goals under adversarial attacks and unexpected failures, is critical for autonomy. Despite important advances in the design of distributed coordination and decision-making algorithms, multi-agent networks have proven fragile to targeted attacks. Novel theories and tools are therefore needed to guarantee resiliency of these systems, being the development of notions and techniques that characterize network resilience critical. However, obtaining such characterizations is difficult as resilience and performance are a complex function of the network’s and adversary’s capabilities, knowledge, resources, and the network interconnection structure. At the same time, we also need novel design methodologies that can protect multi-agent networks and adaptively manage their interconnection over time to achieve performance guarantees. In this talk, we present our recent progress in these directions.
Bio
Sonia Martínez is a Full Professor at the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of California, San Diego and a Jacobs Faculty Scholar. Prof. Martínez received her Ph.D. degree in Engineering Mathematics from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain, in May 2002. Following a year as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Applied Mathematics at the Technical University of Catalonia, Spain, she obtained a Postdoctoral Fulbright Fellowship and held appointments at the Coordinated Science Laboratory of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign during 2004, and at the Center for Control, Dynamical systems and Computation (CCDC) of the University of California, Santa Barbara during 2005. From January 2006 to June 2010, she was an Assistant Professor with the department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of California, San Diego. From July 2010 to June 2014, she was an Associate Professor with the department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of California, San Diego. Dr Martínez' research interests include networked control systems, multi-agent systems, and nonlinear control theory with applications to robotics, cyber-physical systems, and natural/social networks. In particular, she has focused on the modeling and control of robotic sensor networks, the development of distributed coordination algorithms for groups of autonomous vehicles, and the geometric control of mechanical systems. For her work on the control of underactuated mechanical systems she received the Best Student Paper award at the 2002 IEEE Conference on Decision and Control. She was the recipient of a NSF CAREER Award in 2007. For the co-authored papers "Motion coordination with Distributed Information," and "Tutorial on dynamic average consensus: The problem, its applications, and the algorithms", she received respectively the 2008 and 2021 Control Systems Magazine Outstanding Paper Award. She is a Senior Editor of Automatica and an IEEE Fellow. Recently, she was named the inaugural Editor in Chief of a new Control System Society publication, the IEEE Open Journal of Control Systems (IEEE OJCS).
Aerial and Space Robotics: Challenges and Opportunities
Abstract
In the last decade, the field of aerial robotics has experienced fast growth, especially in the case of multi-rotor aerial vehicles. High-performance micro-scale processors and high-efficiency sensors have helped to increase the commercial scope of these flying robots. Aerial robots are increasingly being considered to carry out complex missions within unstructured and dynamic environments. For instance, aerial transportation is essential in emergency rescue missions, as well as for time-critical cargo delivery tasks. Similarly, space robotics has seen a significant increase in activity recently. In this seminar, I will present ongoing projects at the University of New Mexico related to cooperative aerial manipulation, multi-agent counter uncrewed aerial systems (C-UAS), mapping volcanic CO2 emissions with flocking UAVs, and advanced robot manipulation methods in support of the on-orbit servicing, assembly, and manufacturing (OSAM) paradigm.
Bio
Rafael Fierro is a Professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the University of New Mexico, where he has been since 2007. He received his Bachelor of Science from the Escuela Politécnica Nacional, Quito-Ecuador, his MSc degree in control engineering from the University of Bradford, England, and his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington. Before joining UNM, he held a postdoctoral appointment with the General Robotics, Automation, Sensing & Perception (GRASP) Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania and a faculty position with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Oklahoma State University. His current research interests include heterogeneous robotic networks, unmanned aerial systems (UAS), and space robotics. The National Science Foundation (NSF), US Army Research Laboratory (ARL), Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), Department of Energy (DOE), and Sandia National Laboratories have funded his research. He directs the AFRL-UNM Agile Manufacturing Center and the Multi-Agent, Robotics, and Heterogeneous Systems (MARHES) Laboratory. Dr. Fierro was the recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship, the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, and the 2008 International Society of Automation (ISA) Transactions Best Paper Award. He has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Intelligent & Robotic Systems, IEEE Control Systems Magazine, IEEE Transactions on Control of Network Systems T-CNS, and IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering T-ASE.
Algorithmic system design for safety and resilience of future intelligent transportation systems
Abstract
Please join us this Friday, October 7th for a talk by CPSRC Director Ricardo Sanfelice at the first ever UCSC Interdisciplinary Research Symposium. Ricardo will be discussing algorithmic system design for safety and resilience of future intelligent transportation systems, which is a focus of the ~$6M NSF Frontier project that was recently awarded to him and fellow Baskin faculty Abhishek Halder and Heiner Litz.
Bio
Ricardo G. Sanfelice received the B.S. degree in Electronics Engineering from the Universidad de Mar del Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 2001, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA, in 2004 and 2007, respectively. In 2007 and 2008, he held postdoctoral positions at the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and at the Centre Automatique et Systèmes at the École des Mines de Paris. In 2009, he joined the faculty of the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering at the University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA, where he was an Assistant Professor. In 2014, he joined the University of California, Santa Cruz, CA, USA, where he is currently Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Prof. Sanfelice is the recipient of the 2013 SIAM Control and Systems Theory Prize, the National Science Foundation CAREER award, the Air Force Young Investigator Research Award, the 2010 IEEE Control Systems Magazine Outstanding Paper Award, and the 2020 Test-of-Time Award from the Hybrid Systems: Computation and Control Conference. Prof. Sanfelice is a Fellow of IEEE.
