News

Ye Hu, Mingzhe Chen, and Walid Saad Have Won The Best Paper Award at The IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM)

Posted on Dec. 8, 2020

Ye Hu (ECE PhD student),  Mingzhe Chen (ECE Alumni), 

and Walid Saad have been notified by IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM) Technical Program Chairs that their paper entitled "Meta-Reinforcement Learning for Trajectory Design in Wireless UAV Networks" has won the Best Paper Award in the IEEE GLOBECOM 2020 Cognitive Radio & AI-Enabled Networks Symposium Best Paper Award. The journal version of this work is available here: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2012.03158.pdf

Mingzhe Chen and Walid Saad Have Won The Best Paper Award at The IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC)

Posted on May 14, 2020

Mingzhe Chen (ECE Alumni) and Walid Saad have been 

notified by IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC) Technical Program Chairs that their paper entitled "Convergence Time Minimization of Federated Learning over Wireless Networks" has won the Best Paper Award in the IEEE ICC 2020.

PhD Student Abdelrahman Eldosouky successfully defends his PhD 

Posted on May 3, 2019

PhD Student Abdelrahman Eldosouky successfully defends his dissertation entitled "Security of Critical Cyber-Physical Systems: Fundamentals and Optimization".

Abstract:

Cyber-physical systems (CPSs) are systems that integrate physical elements with a cyber layer that enables sensing, monitoring, and processing the data from the physical components. Examples of CPSs include autonomous vehicles, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), smart grids, and the Internet of Things (IoT). In particular, many critical infrastructure (CI) that are vital to our modern day cities and communities, are CPSs. This wide range of CPSs domains represents a cornerstone of smart cities in which various CPSs are connected to provide efficient services. However, this level of connectivity has brought forward new security challenges and has left CPSs vulnerable to many cyber-physical attacks and disruptive events that can utilize the cyber layer to cause damage to both cyber and physical components. Addressing these security and operation challenges requires developing new security solutions to prevent and mitigate the effects of cyber and physical attacks as well as improving the CPSs response in face of disruptive events, which is known as the CPS resilience.

To this end, the primary goal of this dissertation is to develop novel analytical tools that can be used to study, analyze, and optimize the resilience and security of critical CPSs. In particular, this dissertation presents a number of key contributions that pertain to the security and the resilience of multiple CPSs that include power systems, the Internet of Things (IoT), UAVs, and transportation networks. First, a mathematical framework is proposed to analyze and mitigate the effects of GPS spoofing attacks against UAVs. The proposed framework uses system dynamics to model the optimal routes which UAVs can follow in normal operations and under GPS spoofing attacks. A countermeasure mechanism, built on the premise of cooperative localization, is then developed to mitigate the effects of these GPS spoofing attacks. To practically deploy the proposed defense mechanism, a dynamic Stackelberg game is formulated to model the interactions between a GPS spoofer and a drone operator. The equilibrium strategies of the game are analytically characterized and studied through a novel, computationally efficient algorithm. Simulation results show that, when combined with the Stackelberg strategies, the proposed defense mechanism will outperform baseline strategy selection techniques in terms of reducing the possibility of UAV capture. Next, a game-theoretic framework is developed to model a novel moving target defense (MTD) mechanism that enables CPSs to randomize their configurations to proactive deter impending attacks. By adopting an MTD approach, a CPS can enhance its security against potential attacks by increasing the uncertainty on the attacker. The equilibrium of the developed single-controller, stochastic MTD game is then analyzed. Simulation results show that the proposed framework can significantly improve the overall utility of the defender. Third, the concept of MTD is coupled with new cryptographic algorithms for enhancing the security of an mHealth Internet of Things (IoT) system. In particular, using a combination of theory and implementation, a framework is introduced to enable the IoT devices to update their cryptographic keys locally to eliminate the risk of being revealed while they are shared.

Considering the resilience of CPSs, a novel framework for analyzing the component- and systemlevel resilience of CIs is proposed. This framework brings together new ideas from Bayesian networks and contract theory – a Nobel prize winning theory – to define a concrete system-level resilience index for CIs and to optimize the allocation of resources, such as redundant components, monitoring devices, or UAVs to help those CIs improve their resilience. In particular, the developed resilience index is able to account for the effect of CI components on the its probability of failure. Meanwhile, using contract theory, a comprehensive resource allocation framework is proposed enabling the system operator to optimally allocate resources to each individual CI based on its economic contribution to the entire system. Simulation results show that the system operator can economically benefit from allocating the resources while dams can have a significant improvement in their resilience indices. Subsequently, the developed contract-theoretic framework is extended to account for cases of asymmetric information in which the system operator has only partial information about the CIs being in some vulnerability and criticality levels. Under such asymmetry, it is shown that the proposed approach maximizes the system operator’s utility while ensuring that no CI has an incentive to ask for another contract. Next, a proof-of-concept framework is introduced to analyze and improve the resilience of transportation networks against flooding. The effect of flooding on road capacities and on the free-flow travel time, is considered for different rain intensities and roads preparedness. Meanwhile, the total system’s travel time before and after flooding is evaluated using the concept of a Wardrop equilibrium. To this end, a proactive mechanism is developed to reduce the system’s travel time, after flooding, by shifting capacities (available lanes) between same road sides. In a nutshell, this dissertation provides a suite of analytical techniques that allow the optimization of security and resilience across multiple CPSs.

NetSciWiS Almunus Wins the 2019 Outstanding Dissertation Award in "Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics" 

Posted on Mar 7, 2019

Congratuations to ECE Alumnus Mohammad Mozaffari (Ph.D. 18) for winning the 2019 Outstanding Dissertation Award in the "Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics" category from the Virginia Tech Graduate School.

Mohammad's dissertation title is Fundamentals of Wireless Communications and Networking with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and his advisor was Dr. Walid Saad.

Mohammad's dissertation was selected for this award based on the originality of his research and its potential for high impact, the contribution he has made to the scientific community, as well as the preparation of his final document.

The award carries a certificate and an honorarium of $1,000 from the Graduate School, which will be presented at the Graduate Awards Banquet on Thursday, March 28, 2019.

https://ece.vt.edu/news/article/mohammad-mozaffari-wins-oustanding-dissertation-award-2019

Walid Saad Has Been Elevated to IEEE Fellow (Class 2019) for Contributions to Distributed Optimization in Cooperative and Heterogeneous Wireless Systems 

Posted on Nov 15, 2018

Walid Saad has been elevated to IEEE Fellow (Class 2019) for contributions to distributed optimization in cooperative and heterogeneous wireless systems.  Each year, following a rigorous evaluation procedure, the IEEE Fellow Committee recommends a select group of recipients for elevation to IEEE Fellow. Less than 0.1% of voting members are selected annually for this prestigious member grade elevation.

Bo Zhou and Walid Saad Have Won The Best Paper Award at The IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM) 

Posted on Nov 7, 2018

Bo Zhou (ECE post-doc) and Walid Saad have been notified by IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM) Technical Program Chairs that their paper entitled "Optimal Sampling and Updating for Minimizing Age of Information in the Internet of Things" has won the Best Paper Award in the conference’s Communications Theory Symposium.  The award will be presented in Abu Dhabi, UAE in December 2018 during the GLOBECOM conference week.

PhD student Gilsoo Lee Receives a Nokia Foundation Centennial Scholarship 

Posted on Jul 30, 2018

PhD student Gilsoo Lee (LINK HISN AME TO HIS WEBSITE) received a Centennial Scholarship from the Nokia Foundation. This scholarship provides EUR 10,000 that will enable Gilsoo to visit the University of Oulu in Finland to pursue collaborative research on fog and edge computing. 

Dr. Saad received the 2018 IEEE ComSoc RCC Early Achievement Award 

Posted on May 28, 2018

Dr. Saad has received the 2018 IEEE ComSoc Radio Communications Committee (RCC) Early Achievement Award for contributions to fundamental results in radio communications, wireless resource allocation and cooperative communications. He received the award at IEEE ICC that was held in Kansas City in May 2018, where he gave a lecture on "Unmanned Aerial Vehicles for Wireless Networking".

Link to the website:

http://rc.committees.comsoc.org/awards/

Dr. Saad awarded IEEE ComSoc Best Young Professional in Academia 

Posted on Dec 20, 2017

Dr. Walid Saad received the IEEE Communications Society (ComSoc) Best Young Professional in Academia Award in recognition for outstanding contributions to academia in innovative communications research and outstanding services to society.

Dr. Saad delivers a tutorial on "The Internet of Things: Enablers, Technologies, and Applications" at IEEE GLOBECOM 2017 

Posted on Dec 4, 2017

Dr. Saad, together wtih Dr. Mehdi Bennis, delivered a tutorial on the Internet of Things at IEEE GLOBECOM 2017. The tutorial covered the fundamentals of the IoT, as well as a broad range of IoT applications that include fog computing, M2M communications, URLLC, UAV communications, V2X networking, and wireless virtual reality.

IEEE GLOBECOM 2017:

http://globecom2017.ieee-globecom.org/

New Seed Grant from the Army Research Office (ARO) to study the performance of communications using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) 

Posted on Oct 1, 2017

Dr. Saad received a new 9-month, $57,922 seed grant from the Army Research Office (ARO) entitled "Performance of Wireless Communications using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles", whose goal is to develop fundamental results on the performance of wireless communications using flying unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

Dr. Saad delivers a keynote on Drones and Smart Cities at the IEEE VTC-Fall, 3rd IEEE Workshop on Next Generation Backhaul/Fronthaul Networks 

Posted on Sep 24, 2017

Dr. Saad delivered a keynote entitled " The Internet of Everything: When Drones meet 5G in Context-Aware Smart Cities" at  the IEEE VTC-Fall, 3rd IEEE Workshop on Next Generation Backhaul/Fronthaul Networks.

Abstract:

The coming decade will be marked by a large-scale wireless interconnection of smartphones, sensors, wearables, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and people, into what has come to be collectively known as the Internet of Everything (IoE), which will lie at the heart of tomorrow's smart cities. In this talk, we give an overview on two key ingredients that will help realize this IoE vision. First, we investigate the role of UAVs within the IoE by exposing the various performance tradeoffs associated with their use as flying base stations. Then, we introduce the disruptive paradigm of context-aware networking in which a wireless system can exploit a dimension that has often been overlooked – the user’s context. We discuss the various components of this framework while highlighting its promising outlook for boosting the performance of beyond 5G networks. We conclude this talk by providing our vision on wireless networking in the smart cities era.

3rd IEEE Workshop on Next Generation Backhaul/Fronthaul Networks:

https://sites.google.com/site/backnets2017/home

Dr. Saad delivers a plenary talk on Smart Cities at the APA Virginia Conference 

Posted on Jul 16, 2017

Dr. Saad delivered a talk entitled "Smart Cities: Enablers, Challenges, and Opportunities" at the APA Virginia Conference.

Abstract:

Transforming our villages, towns, and cities into smart and connected communities is arguably the most pressing technological challenge for the coming decade. This plenary will present a broad view on the smart cities vision, while discussing its enabling technologies with a focus on the challenges and opportunities associated with each one of them. 

APA Virginia Conference Program:

https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/2eb2d6_5d7093777d3a448b87be5f8acfe1109b.pdf

Dr. Walid Saad and Yaman Sharaf-Dabbagh Participate in Summer Camps at Virginia Tech 

Posted on Jul 8, 2017

Dr. Walid Saad and Yaman Sharaf-Dabbagh participate in two summer camps held at Virginia Tech, C-Tech² and Imagination summer camps. In C-Tech² - Computers and Technology at Virginia Tech summer camp, Dr. Saad and Sharaf-Dabbagh gave a workshop in titled "Introducing the Internet of Things, a Hands on Workshop" to junior and senior high school students. Imagination is a hands-on science and engineering summer day camp for rising 7th and 8th graders, Dr. Saad and Sharaf-Dabbagh gave a similar workshop titled "Introducing the Internet of Things, a Hands on Workshop" to rising 7th and 8th graders.

C-Tech² - Computers and Technology at Virginia Tech:

https://www.eng.vt.edu/ctech2

Imagination

https://eng.vt.edu/ceed/ceed-pre-college-programs/imagination.html

Dr. Saad was a co-author of the paper that received the Best Student Paper Award from the 26th European Conference on Networks and Communications (EuCNC'2017) 

Posted on Jun 14, 2017

Dr. Saad was a co-author of the paper that received the Best Student Paper Award from the 26th European Conference on Networks and Communications (EuCNC'2017) for the following paper:

M. El-Bamby, M. Bennis, and W. Saad, "Proactive Edge Computing in Latency-Constrained Fog Networks", in Proc. European Conference on Networks and Communications (EuCNC), Oulu, Finland, June 2017.

The paper introduced the new paradigm of proactive caching of computing tasks in fog networks. A PDF of the paper is found here:

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1704.06749.pdf

Dr. Walid Saad Promoted to Associate Professor 

Posted on Jun 6, 2017

The Virginia Tech Board of Visitors approved the promotion of Walid Saad to associate professor with tenure.

Virginia Tech News:

https://vtnews.vt.edu/articles/2017/06/bov-promo-tenure-0617.html

PhD Student Omid Semiari successfully defends his PhD entitled "Context-Aware Resource Management and Performance Analysis of Millimeter Wave and Sub-6 GHz Wireless Networks" 

Posted on Jun 5, 2017

PhD student Omid Semiari has successfully defended his PhD, entitled "Context-Aware Resource Management and Performance Analysis of Millimeter Wave and Sub-6 GHz Wireless Networks". Dr. Semiari will now join Georgia Southern University as a tenure-track Assistant Professor. Congratulations Omid!

Dr. Saad awarded a faculty fellowship from the College of Engineering 

Posted on May 5, 2017

Dr. Saad received a Dean's award in the form of a faculty fellowship from the College of Engineering, for outstanding research.

Dr. Saad provides his expert opinion to the media on the emerging Internet of Battlefield Things technology 

Posted on Apr 24, 2017

Dr. Saad was recently interviewed by the Christian Science Monitor and KCBS Radio San Francisco to weigh in on the emerging Internet of Battlefield Things technology, that the U.S. Military is envisioning over the next few years. The related news article from the Christian Science Monitor is found here:

https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Passcode/2017/0331/A-more-connected-military-means-new-battlefield-glitches-too

Anibal Sanjab received IEEE ICC 2017 conference travel grant Posted on Apr 7, 2017

Anibal Sanjab was chosen to receive the IEEE ICC 2017 Student Travel Grant to attend the 2017 IEEE International Conference on Communications in Paris, France.

the 2017 IEEE International Conference on Communications website:

http://icc2017.ieee-icc.org/

Dr. Saad elected Vice Chair of the Americas for IEEE Technical Committee on Cognitive Networks 

Posted on Dec 6, 2016

Walid Saad has been elected the Vice Chair of the Americas for the IEEE Communications Society Technical Committee of Cognitive Networks. Beginning in 2017, Saad will serve in this capacity for two years.

IEEE Technical Committee on Cognitive Networks:

http://cn.committees.comsoc.org/

Omid Semiari received Globecom conference travel grant 

Posted on Oct 4, 2016

Omid Semiari was chosen to receive the IEEE Globecom 2016 Student Travel Grant to attend 2016 IEEE Global Communications Conference in Washington, DC USA.

Global communications conference, exhibition, and industry forum (Globecom) 2016 website:

http://globecom2016.ieee-globecom.org/

Our Research on Smart Grid and Cyber-physical Systems Security in the News 

Posted on Jun 23, 2016

Our research on smart grid and cyber-physical systems security in the news. Report title "Report on grid security lists potential ways to mitigate threats"

Smart grid news report:

http://www.smartgridnews.com/story/report-grid-security-lists-potential-ways-mitigate-threats/2016-06-23

Yaman Sharaf-Dabbagh joined Global City Teams Challenge Expo at Austin, TX 

Posted on Jun 13, 2016

Yaman Sharaf-Dabbagh joined Global City Teams Challenge Expo held at Austin, TX on June 13th and 14th.

Global City Teams Challenge is an initiative designed to advance the deployment of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies within a smart city / smart community environment. The IoT Event for Global City Leaders brings together over 200 Cities and their respective leadership to prospect and partner with innovative technology and service providers; linking progressive cities with state-of-the-art solutions and best practices.

GCTC Expo • June 13-14, 2016 • Austin, TX:

http://www.gctcexpo.org/

Dr. Walid Saad to co-chair an IEEE GLOBECOM 2016 Workshop on the Internet of Everything (IoE) 

Posted on Apr 6, 2016

The coming decade will be marked by a large-scale, pervasive wireless interconnection of devices, sensors, smartphones, tablets, wearable devices, vehicles, drones, and mundane objects into a massive cyber-physical Internet of Everything (IoE) system. It is anticipated that the IoE will provide connectivity for billions of devices and millions of individuals worldwide. However, such an interconnection will only be possible if a reliable and high-speed wireless communication infrastructure is built to sustain the massive and heterogeneous traffic that will stem from the IoE. Such an infrastructure will encompass a variety of wireless systems, ranging from cellular networks to WLANs. Owing to its pervasiveness, scale, and heterogeneity, the IoE will introduce many novel and unique challenges for wireless communications that range from enabling a co-existence between machine type devices and human type devices to delivering ultra-low latency communication and developing resource allocation mechanisms that can adapt to the heterogeneous IoE environment. Moreover, the IoE will also incorporate emerging technologies such as drone-based and UAV communications which will have their own, unique challenges. 

read more ..

Dr. Walid Saad presented a tutorial on Game-Theoretic Methods for Cyber-Physical Systems at the premier event on Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS Week) 

Posted on Apr 11, 2016

Cyber-physical systems are characterized by four key features: Heterogeneity, in terms of technology and services. 

Dynamics, in terms of rapidly varying environments and uncertainty at both the cyber and physical realms.

Size, in terms of number of users, nodes, and services.

Cyber-physical vulnerabilities, that can stem from multiple cyber and physical entry points. 

The need for smart, secure, and autonomic CPS system designs has become a central research issue in a variety of applications and scenarios. One example is next-generation smart grid systems in which a myriad of devices such as renewable energy sources, customer-owned storage units, and traditional generator units must be able to interact, co-exist, and self-adapt to uncertainties and time-varying environments. Another example is the Internet of things system, which will encompass a broad range of devices, of different capabilities, that must interact, operate, and control various cyber and physical operations. Incorporating self-organizing optimization capabilities along with smarter security solutions in heterogeneous CPSs motivates the development of innovative analytical techniques.

read more ..

Dr. Walid Saad Receives Outstanding New Assistant Professor Award 

Posted on Mar 9, 2016

Dr. Walid Saad has received the College of Engineering Dean’s Award for Outstanding New Assistant Professor this year. The award ceremony will take place on May 03, 2016, 5:00-7:00 pm at the Inn at Virginia Tech. Congratulations, Dr. Saad!

Dr. Saad named Steven O. Lane Junior Faculty Fellow of Electrical and Computer Engineering 

Posted on Nov 19, 2015

Walid Saad, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering in the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech, has been named the Steven O. Lane Junior Faculty Fellow of Electrical and Computer Engineering by the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors. 

The Steven O. Lane Junior Faculty Fellowship was endowed in 2004, through donations made in memory of the late Steven O. Lane, a 1978 graduate of Virginia Tech who was considered to be a leader in spacecraft antenna design. He spent his entire professional career with Boeing Satellite Systems; among his many accomplishments were 12 patents and several professional papers. The fellowship is presented to a junior faculty member for teaching and research excellence.

Saad joined the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in 2014 as a tenure-track assistant professor. He has earned a reputation as an exceptional researcher having won numerous awards including three best paper awards at conferences, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers' (IEEE) ComSoc Fred W. Ellersick Prize in 2015 for the best IEEE magazine paper on communications published in the previous three calendar years, the National Science Foundation CAREER award in 2013, and the Office of Naval Research (ONR) Young ... Read More

Mohammad Mozaffari received Globecom conference travel grant 

Posted on Sept 23, 2015

Mohammad Mozaffari was chosen to receive the prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) student travel grant (STG) to attend 2015 IEEE Global Communications Conference in San Diego, CA, USA.

Global communications conference, exhibition, and industry forum (Globecom) 2015 website:

http://globecom2015.ieee-globecom.org/

The NetSciWiS research group is funded by the National Science Foundation to pursue critical research on smart cities and the Internet of Things 

Posted on Sept 17, 2015

The NetSciWiS research group has received two new grants from the National Science Foundation. The first grant, funded by the NSF CRISP program, is a large-scale grant that pertains to laying the foundations of resilient, interconnected smart cities. The second grant, funded by the NSF CPS program, under the auspices of the NIST Global City Teams Challenge, will investigate the synergies between data analytics and the security of the Internet of Things.

These two grants were were part of the grants announced by the National Science Foundation at the inaugural White House  Smart Cities Initiative that took place on September 14th, 2015. More information on this event and the grants is found here:

CRISP program announcement:

http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?preview=y&cntn_id=136266 

Global City Teams Challenge:

http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?preview=y&cntn_id=136250

NSF event at the White House Smart Cities initiative:

http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=136253&org=NSF&from=news

Abdelrahman El-Dosouky was selected for "Games and Contracts for Cyber-Physical Security" summer school at UCLA 

Posted on Jul 7, 2015

Abdelrahman El-Dosouky was selected for "Games and Contracts for Cyber-Physical Security" summer school held at UCLA from JULY 7 - 23, 2015. The summer school covered many topics in game theory and economics that's related to cyber and network security.

Graduate Summer School: Games and Contracts for Cyber-Physical Security,

http://www.ipam.ucla.edu/programs/summer-schools/graduate-summer-school-games-and-contracts-for-cyber-physical-security/

Yaman Sharaf-Dabbagh joined Global City Teams Challenge Expo 

Posted on Jun 1, 2015

Yaman Sharaf-Dabbagh joined Global City Teams Challenge Expo held in Washington DC at June 1st.

The expo showcase new IoT technologies that are transforming decision making within a smart city / smart community environment in the US and around the world.

The expo includes:

• Project demonstrations from 40+ GCTC teams offering a chance to see and touch key components of unmanned aerial vehicle networks for firefighters, autonomous vehicles and other Internet of Things applications.

• Rapid-fire presentations delivered by city officials and team members researching and deploying technologies related to sectors including healthcare, energy and disaster recovery among others.

• Opportunities to engage thought leaders from industry, government and the university research sectors as well as 30+ participating cities around the world

• Keynotes and announcements regarding opportunities for municipalities and innovators to participate in smart city initiatives in 2015-2016 and beyond

Global City Teams Challenge Expo,

https://www.us-ignite.org/globalcityteamsexpo/