Nelms Institute for the Connected World Seminar: Sandip Ray

“Architecting Internet-of-Things Systems: Impending Challenges and Integrative Solutions”
Dr. Sandip Ray, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Director of Industry Programs, Nelms Institute
Thursday, Nov. 29, 1:00 p.m.
LAR 310

Abstract

The Internet-of-Things (IoT) regime arguably began about a decade back, when the number of connected computing devices exceeded the human population. Today, our environment includes billions of connected electronic systems, coordinating and communicating to implement applications of unprecedented scale and diversity, ranging from intelligent homes, smart biomedical devices, self-driving automobiles, to smart cities. The trend is towards even more proliferation of these systems with estimates of trillions within the next fifteen years, representing the fastest growth for any sector at any time in the human history.

Given the scale of computing in the IoT regime, it is crucial to ensure that participating systems operate (or process, store, and communicate information) safely, securely, and as intended. Architecture and validation challenges arise from complex interplay of a variety of constraints from reliability, energy-efficiency, security, software enablement, validation, in-field configurability, and many others. To address these challenges, fundamentally new approaches are necessary that cross-cut several traditional areas of computer science and engineering including computer architecture, hardware/software co-design, verification, and machine learning, in addition to drawing ideas from areas as diverse as mechanical engineering, biomedical engineering, and device physics.

In this talk, we will look at architectural and design challenges and approaches in ensuring efficient, reliable and trustworthy behavior of computing systems in the IoT regime. IoT system architecture in current industrial practice is a highly complex activity, spanning consideration for the entire design cycle and involving a variety of stakeholders with conflicting requirements. We will specifically focus on automotive systems, — which comprise one of the most complex connected systems in the IoT regime, — and research questions related to ensuring security and trustworthiness of these systems through architecture and validation technologies. We will present a novel, flexible approach to system architecture for IoT and automotive systems that facilitates comprehension and analysis of trade-offs among various stakeholder interests. The talk will give a flavor of the nature of the cross-cutting, collaborative research necessary to develop high-assurance computing devices in the IoT era.

Biography

Dr. Sandip Ray is an Endowed IoT Term Professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Florida. His research involves developing correct, dependable, secure, and trustworthy computing through cooperation of specification, synthesis, architecture and validation technologies. His research targets next-generation computing applications, including autonomous automotive systems, smart homes, intelligent implants, etc. Before joining University of Florida, Dr. Ray was a Senior Principal Engineer at NXP Semiconductors, where he led the R&D on security validation for automotive and Internet-of-Things applications. Prior to that, he was a Research Scientist at Intel Strategic CAD Labs, where he worked on pre-silicon and post-silicon validation of security and functional correctness of SoC designs, design-for-security and design-for-debug architectures, CAD tools, and specifications for SoC design requirements. Apart from NXP and Intel, his work also found applications in other companies including AMD, Galois, IBM, and Rockwell Collins. Prior to joining industry, Dr. Ray was a Research Scientist at University of Texas at Austin, where he led several research projects from DARPA, SRC, and National Science Foundation.

Dr. Ray is the author of three books and over 60 publications in peer-reviewed premier international journals and conferences. He served as guest editors for an IEEE Transactions on Multi-Scale Systems (TMSCS) special issue on Wearables, Implants, and Internet-of-Things, as well as special issues of ACM Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic Systems (TODAES) and Springer Journal on Electronic Testing Theory and Applications (JETTA). He has received several recognitions/awards from Intel for his extensive contribution in the fields of system architecture, post-silicon validation, and hardware/software co-design. He has given number of invited, tutorial, and keynote presentations at several international forums on security, validation, and energy challenges in the IoT regime. During his tenure in industry, Dr. Ray served as Intel and NXP representative in Semiconductor Research Consortium (SRC) technical advisory board, and as semiconductor industry representative on trustworthy systems to the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA). He has served as a program committee member for more than 50 international meetings and conferences, and as program chair for Formal Methods in Computer-Aided Design (FMCAD). He currently serves as an Associate Editor for IEEE TMSCS and Springer Journal on Hardware and Systems Security. He has a Ph.D. from University of Texas at Austin and is a Senior Member of IEEE.