SUPERCHARGING INFORMATION FUSION When it comes to combining massive amounts of data, processing power and speed are key.
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hree faculty in the College of Engineering and Computer Science have been awarded a grant by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research to introduce dynamic data to the design of information fusion systems to accelerate the processing of large amounts of data. Professor Jian Tang, Professor Biao Chen, and Distinguished Professor Pramod K. Varshney will evaluate information fusion, including sensing/data collection and information processing. Ultimately, they intend to develop a computational platform that enables scalable stream data processing for real-time information fusion.
The team will combine a widely used distributed computing framework with the powerful processing power of a graphics processing unit (GPU) cluster. In doing so, they expect to dramatically increase the system’s speed. This project represents an original research effort on distributed fusion of heterogeneous stream data and will result in a first-of-its-kind distributed GPU-accelerated platform to enable low-latency information fusion.
NON-PROFIT ORG U.S. POSTAGE
PLUGGING INTO SUSTAINABILITY WITH ELECTRIC VEHICLES
PAID
Syracuse University College of Engineering and Computer Science Syracuse, NY 13244-1240
More electric vehicles on the road means we need a smarter way to power them.
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lab to research and test ways to connect electric vehicles to the smart grid received a grant from Syracuse University’s new Campus as a Laboratory for Sustainability (CALS) program. College of Engineering and Computer Science Associate Professor Steve Chapin and Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs Professor Peter Wilcoxen will lead the lab at the Syracuse Center of Excellence. They will establish a student electric vehicle club and use the lab in a graduate-level course on smart grids. Funding for the grant comes from the Syracuse University Climate Action Plan. As energy efficiency efforts have been implemented in recent years, some of the savings have gone into a fund to
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support CALS grants, on the theory that research and education about ways the campus interacts with climate and energy will enhance the University’s sustainability efforts.
USED GLOBALLY, CYBERSECURITY LABS SPRING FROM SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY
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YOUR DEPARTMENT, YOUR COLLEGE, YOUR SUCCESS Gifts to our College allow us to further prepare our students in ways that will differentiate them in the competitive marketplace and magnify the value of a Syracuse University engineering and computer science degree. Gifts will also support specific initiatives aimed at positioning our College as a leading model for contemporary engineering and computer science education, as presented in our Transforming Our Future plan at eng-cs.syr.edu/transformation. With your help, there is no limit to what we can achieve. Please consider making your gift today at eng-cs.syr.edu/givenow.
very year, Professor Kevin Du hosts training workshops on a set of open-source, hands-on cybersecurity exercises.
The no-cost Security Education (SEED) lab exercises are developed at Syracuse University and used all over the world for computer and information security education.
We share these accomplishments with you because you are a part of us. As an alumnus or a friend of this Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, you have contributed to our shared success by your very association. A great many of you have also generously helped fund the endeavors highlighted within this newsletter.
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SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY SYRACUSE NY
RESEARCHERS FIND SECURITY FLAW IN COMMERCIAL DRONES
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uying a drone is easier than ever. The Federal Aviation Administration estimated 1.9 million drones would be sold in 2016, but work by Syracuse University computer engineering students and faculty points to a potential security flaw: vulnerability to radio frequencies. Using a lab-assembled drone, with parts purchased online or 3D printed at Syracuse University, College of Engineering and Computer Science undergraduate Eric Jiang and Professor Kevin Du discovered that the radio frequency produced by a ham radio would stop a quadcopter’s propellers from spinning or even disable the drone’s microprocessors in flight. This would spell a loss of flight control and could lead to a crash.
In the annual workshops, Du and a team of computer science students and alumni teach approximately seventy instructors from colleges and universities across the United States how to use the labs. The attendees take the knowledge that they gained back to their own institutions where they incorporate them into their own teaching.
While initial, proof-of-concept exploration required Jiang’s radio to be physically close to a drone to disrupt the flight control components, he says that minor modifications could turn the radio into a long-distance weapon. Using a directional antenna or pumping up the power in excess of what an amateur’s radio license allows would both increase the possible attack distance. While these actions would be illegal, they are possible to perform with commercially available components.
Du’s mission is to reach 700 colleges and universities through the SEED workshops over the course of the next three years. Du is also fulfilling a goal to expand his SEED workshop to other countries by hosting international workshops. For information on future workshops and to access Du’s labs, visit www.cis.syr.edu/~wedu/seed.
Jiang and Du explain that there is an easy fix: applying a radio frequency-impervious metal shield over the on-board controls. They suspect such a shield is routinely omitted from over-thecounter drones due to the manufacturing focus on producing lightweight machines.
Electrical Engineering & Computer Science
PATENT AWARDED FOR WEARABLE CAMERA TECHNOLOGY
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or many people with limited mobility, alerting others or getting help after a fall is a serious concern. Associate Professor Senem Velipasalar began looking at the issue in 2011 and realized the camera-based monitoring systems at the time were using static, wall-mounted cameras installed at fixed locations.
“What if we used images from a wearable camera?” asked Velipasalar. The camera would face toward the scene and capture images of surroundings. The team developed an algorithm that can use data from a smartphone’s built-in accelerometer and images from a smartphone’s built-in camera and process this data on the phone itself. When the smartphone was worn on a belt unit, a student researcher demonstrated how it worked. Velipasalar and her students found fall detection systems that
SPRING 2017
only relied on accelerometer data had high rates of false positives. Being in a fast moving vehicle or an elevator or bumping a piece of furniture would often register as a fall. When images from the camera of a phone attached to a belt were processed, and fused with the results from accelerometer data, false alerts were reduced. On February 14, 2017, Velipasalar, Akhan Almagambetov G’11, G’13, and Mauricio Casares G’14 were granted a patent for “Automatic detection by a wearable camera.” Velipasalar believes the technology could be advanced in the future so that a smartphone could interpret what the camera is seeing. “It has many applications,” said Velipasalar. “Depending on where you place the system, it can also be used for activity monitoring, driver assistance, autonomous navigation, surveillance or infrastructure inspection.”