New research projects

New Research Projects

These projects were selected through our CfP “Smart Technologies ensuring Secure Operations in Industry” 2023

We are excited to share the journey of our recent research call, “Smart Technologies Ensuring Secure Operations in Industry.” Launched on August 9, the call attracted an array of cutting-edge project proposals from researchers and experts across diverse fields. Our call was addressed to researchers from TUM and IMT or to researchers that wanted to team up with researchers of these institutions. As it is one of our core missions to foster the French-German relations, it was also obligatory that the projects take place on a French-German scale or even an international scale. The submission period closed on November 2, followed by a swift and thorough review process conducted promptly post-deadline.

The Steering Committee of the GFA, dedicated to ensuring the highest quality and relevance, worked diligently to validate the selected projects. By mid-December, their validation marked a significant milestone in the progression of our research endeavors.

Looking ahead, the much-anticipated project kick-off is scheduled for January 2024. Find here a short description of the projects, as a first glimpse:

  • DTACK: Digital Twin–based Framework for Analyzing Cyberattacks for Intelligent Transportation System: The landscape of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) has recently undergone significant transformation. ITS has evolved from predominantly electro-mechanical systems to sophisticated Electrical and Electronic (E/E) systems. A substantial amount of effort has been dedicated to designing and advancing technology for smart trains and connected autonomous vehicles (CAVs). While these advancements have expanded the capabilities of transportation systems, they have also introduced a range of cybersecurity vulnerabilities, making smart trains and vehicles more appealing targets for potential threats. To effectively safeguard against such attacks, it is imperative to integrate cybersecurity considerations across the entire life cycle of intelligent transportation systems. This encompasses comprehensive testing and evaluation of every security mechanism to defend against all potential threats. However, implementing such attacks is expensive, time consuming, and, most importantly, requires a unique test environment to avoid any possible safety and financial risks. Automotive manufacturers use Digital Twins to improve system performance and enhance vehicle production efficiency. However, this technology is rarely used to test the security of ITSs. This project aims to digitally replicate the security attacks targeting different ITS ecosystem components in different life-cycle phases (see Figure 1). We envision creating a safe and efficient environment for emulating attacks. The environment can be used for automated structured testing of real and virtualized components. This demonstrates the consequences of various cyber-attacks against the ITSs. Additionally, the developed environment can be used to test and validate security mechanisms and to benchmark them under metrics such as effectiveness and efficiency.

  • SecDataGen: AI-Driven Security Data Synthesis for IoT Ecosystems: In the rapidly advancing landscape of the Internet of Things (IoT) and IoT-Edge-Cloud technologies, physical environments are becoming increasingly sensor-equipped, developing intelligent space ecosystems. These ecosystems are fueled by the copious data generated by IoT devices, which are harnessed to exploit AI models and services. Consequently, this has given birth to the concept of Artificial Intelligence of Things (AIoT) systems. However, achieving security, robustness, efficiency, and continuous operation in AIoT systems demands access to realistic and reliable data at scale. Unfortunately, acquiring such data is often hindered by the cost of constructing smart spaces, the challenges of long-term device tracking, data gaps between sensors and knowledge in various intelligent space scenarios, and the constraints on sharing sensitive data. Recognizing these challenges, SecDataGen is dedicated to constructing a comprehensive framework to provide secure, trustworthy datasets for smart space ecosystems. This initiative further facilitates the deployment and sustainable operation of AIoT systems within these environments.

  • SecTT: IMT-TUM Cyber-Security Testbed Toolchain: The participating project partners at IMT and TUM operate several sophisticated testbed research infrastructures for networked systems and cybersecurity research, that provide valuable resources for experimental research by the groups that set up and maintain them. There is a huge potential for creating synergies to research, industry collaboration and education by joining forces, and adding value to these research infrastructures, by providing a framework and software tools for experiment workflows, aiming for experiments and their evaluation software to become easy to modify, extend, combine, and port to the different testbed environments.
    By creating a framework and tools with such a set of properties, a toolchain for malleable experiments for testbed research infrastructures will be designed, which aims to increase quality and reuse of research results, productivity of the scientists, efficient collaboration with industry, ease of use for education purposes, and allows for more efficient use of the testbed resources.
    This project aims to create a framework and tools for experiment orchestration, data analysis, and exchange, which aims to increase quality and reuse of research results, productivity, collaboration, and efficient use of the testbed resources. It builds on the testbeds and tools by the project partners at IMT and TUM, and enables them to contribute to the ESFRI SLICES research infrastructure, with the possibility to receive EU funding reserved for funding of activities included in the ESFRI roadmap.

Stay tuned for more detailed insights into each project and updates on our research initiatives by visiting our website sections for research projects and CfPs. We express our gratitude to all participants for their invaluable contributions and eagerly anticipate the transformative outcomes that these projects will bring in the coming year.