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May 2024 May 2024
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May
14
Tue
IAA Talk – Rahul Razdan @ Stieff Silver Building, Suite 100, Johns Hopkins University
Tickets
May 14 @ 3:30 pm – 4:30 pm

Title: Scalable Methods for Verifying Autonomous Cyber-Physical Systems

Abstract: Digital Twins, a virtual representation of reality, have been effectively used successfully for a number of applications such as training, visualization, and collaboration. For the task of validation and verification (V&V), digital twins combined with predictive models of reality (simulation) offer an attractive method for V&V of large complex systems. Indeed, this process has succeeded spectacularly in the field of semiconductors and electronics, where multi-trillion dollar industries are built on a complex interconnected web of mathematical abstractions, each with processes for abstraction, transformation, and synthesis.  However, in the field of autonomous cyber-physical systems (ground, air, marine), V&V is largely an unsolved problem.  The required abstractions, separation of concerns, characterization methods, and integrated V&V processes have not been discovered yet.  This talk will discuss the underlying structure of the semiconductor V&V process, its mappings to the cyber-physical problem, and introduce PolyVerif (www.avvc.net), an open-source digital twin autonomous vehicle validation framework, whose objective is to accelerate the discoveries of scalable methodologies for cyber-physical V&V.  While PolyVerif is focused on ground vehicles, the underlying structures map to the airborne and marine applications as well.

Bio: Dr. Rahul Razdan is a seasoned scientist and business executive who has had significant roles in the world of academia, startups, and fortune 500 companies. In corporate roles, he was the Sr Vice President of Strategy for Flextronics (FLEX), General Manager of the System and Functional Verification Business at Cadence Design Systems (CDNS), and Alpha CPU architect at Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). He has successfully built successful startups in areas such wireless power, machine learning, and low-power electronics design. In academia, Razdan runs a lab (www.razinstitute.com) with extensive collaborations with a number of R1 universities. Currently, Razdan is working on the problem of validation and verification of cyber-physical systems where he recently received the Fulbright Association John Von Neumann Distinguished Award. He has a BS (1984) and MS (1985) from CMU and PhD from Harvard University (1994).


Zoom: https://wse.zoom.us/j/93458151765?pwd=SDR4Y1ZNNU5LVEVKQnJRUlNLK1Z2QT09
Meeting ID: 934 5815 1765
Passcode: 270275

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May 2024 May 2024

How Do We Create an Assured Autonomous Future?

Autonomous systems have become increasingly integrated into all aspects of every person’s daily life. In response, the Johns Hopkins Institute for Assured Autonomy (IAA) focuses on ensuring that those systems are safe, secure, and reliable, and that they do what they are designed to do.

Pillars of the IAA

Technology

Autonomous technologies perform tasks with a high degree of autonomy and often employ artificial intelligence (AI) to simulate human cognition, intelligence, and creativity. Because these systems are critical to our safety, health, and well-being as well as to the fabric of our system of commerce, new research and engineering methodologies are needed to ensure they behave in safe, reasonable, and acceptable ways…

Ecosystem

Autonomous systems must integrate well with individuals and with society at large. Such systems often integrate into—and form collectively into—an autonomous ecosystem. That ecosystem—the connections and interactions between autonomous systems, over networks, with the physical environment, and with humans—must be assured, resilient, productive, and fair in the autonomous future…

Ethics and Governance

The nation must adopt the right policy to ensure autonomous systems benefit society. Just as the design of technology has dramatic impacts on society, the development and implementation of policy can also result in intended and unintended consequences. Furthermore, the right governance structures are critical to enforce sound policy and to guide the impact of technology…

  • In recent years, we have learned that the most important element about autonomous systems is – for humans – trust. Trust that the autonomous systems will behave predictably, reliably, and effectively. That sort of trust is hard-won and takes time, but the centrality of this challenge to the future of humanity in a highly autonomous world motivates us all.
    Ralph Semmel, Director, Applied Physics Laboratory
  • In the not too distant future we will see more and more autonomous systems operating with humans, for humans, and without humans, taking on tasks that were once thought of as the exclusive domains of humans. How can we as individuals and as a society be assured that these systems are design for resilience against degradation or malicious attack? The  mission of the Institute is to bring assurance to people so that as our world is populated by autonomous systems they are operating safely, ethically, and in the best interests of humans.
    Ed Schlesinger Benjamin T. Rome Dean, Whiting School of Engineering