Research

Overview

Our fields of research are now on:

1. Dynamics and Control Theory and Systems
2. AI based Digital Twin Systems and Methods
3. Computer Science and Software Engineering with specialization in Dependable, Autonomous and Intelligent Systems
4. Dependable Computing and Fault-Tolerance of Systems and Networks
5. Mechatronics and Aerospace Robotic Systems

Particularly, we are working on the following tracks:

• intelligent, dependable and secure digital twins, digital twin for urban aerial mobility,
• reinforcement learning based intelligent control for unmanned vehicles and robotic systems,
• generative adversarial networks (GANs) for digital twins,
• dependability and security of systems and networks,
• fault tolerance of embedded systems in aerospace and mechatronics,
• disaster tolerance and recovery of computing systems,
• integration of cloud/fog/edge computing paradigms,
• dependability and security analytical quantification for Internet of Things, cloud data centers, unmanned vehicles, mechatronic production chains, and e-logistics.

Neural Dynamics and Control

• We believe artificial intelligence (AI) and data science (DS) will change the whole aerospace industries.
• Dynamics theories represent dynamical behaviors of systems using dynamics models which are the approximation of observed reality by the deep understanding and modeling of dynamic processes. Dynamics are expressed by a system of (ordinary/partial — under-determined — deterministic/stochastic — differential/difference) equations.
• Machine learning addresses algorithms to accomplish non-human tasks based on input data, fundamentally. ML algorithms are specially indispensable in the problems without explicit dynamics model but with observed data.
• We are working on the intersection of machine learning and dynamics & control to explore the solutions for the two fundamental research questions:
  • How to analyze dynamics to develop control systems on the basis of observed data rather than attempt to study models analytically?
  • How to analyze algorithms to develop control systems for the guarantee of the highest-level safety in urban air mobility (UAM) and its operational digital twin (UAM-ODT)?
• We are exploring the solutions in response to the above curiosity
  • Digital twin for control
  • Control for digital twin

Digital Twin Area

• Digital twin (DT) is a pioneering technology and a promising game-changer in various emerging industries.
• The concept of DT opens a world of possibilities for fundamentally the infusion of physical-twin specific computational models which are dynamically updated into a feedback loop of data-driven analysis and decision-making.
• A digital twin is a set of coupled computational models that gradually transit throughout different states in its featured state-space as time goes on, in which constantly and equivalently represent the real-world structure, behaviors and surrounding context of its physical twin.
• We are working on the development of (i) neural digital twin dynamic engines (DTDE), (ii) neural digital twin control engines (DTCE), (iii) digital twin control frame (DTCF) and (iv) digital twin cloud infrastructure (DTCI) for U*V systems.

Dependability and Security Quantification Area

• Dependability and security are of five distinctive natures (along with functionality, performance, and cost) for computing and communication systems.
• Computing systems and networks with a sophisticated composition of multi-level systems and things are inevitably prone to a chain of threats (faults, errors, and failures) which eventually causes fatal losses, such as service interruption/outage, data leak, or even human lives.
• Even a 1% failure rate is too high, because it causes 3.65 days of unscheduled downtime in a year which, in turn, may reduce an enormous amount of enterprise turnover.
• Therefore, dependability and security requirements should be taken into consideration to obtain the highest level of trustworthiness for computing infrastructures, in practice.
• We are working on the quantification methodologies for dependability and security metrics of computing systems and networks: virtualized server systems (VSS), data center networks (DCN), software defined network (SDN), Cloud-Fog-Edge Continuum (CFE), Internet of Medical Things (IoMT), Internet of Industrial Things (IoIT), unmanned aerial systems (UAS) etc.