Robotics | The Contracting Education Academy

April 3, 2018 By cs

Researchers at Georgia Tech design robot to defend factories against cyberthreats

It’s small enough to fit inside a shoebox, yet this robot on four wheels has a big mission: keeping factories and other large facilities safe from hackers.

Cybersecurity experts have a new tool in the fight against hackers – a decoy robot. Researchers at Georgia Tech built the “HoneyBot” to lure hackers into thinking they had taken control of a robot, but instead the robot gathers valuable information about the bad actors, helping businesses better protect themselves from future attacks.

Meet the HoneyBot.

Developed by a team of researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology, the diminutive device is designed to lure in digital troublemakers who have set their sights on industrial facilities. HoneyBot will then trick the bad actors into giving up valuable information to cybersecurity professionals.

The decoy robot arrives as more and more devices – never designed to operate on the Internet – are coming online in homes and factories alike, opening up a new range of possibilities for hackers looking to wreak havoc in both the digital and physical world.

“Robots do more now than they ever have, and some companies are moving forward with, not just the assembly line robots, but free-standing robots that can actually drive around factory floors,” said Raheem Beyah, the Motorola Foundation Professor and interim Steve W. Chaddick School Chair in Georgia Tech’s School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. “In that type of setting, you can imagine how dangerous this could be if a hacker gains access to those machines. At a minimum, they could cause harm to whatever products are being produced. If it’s a large enough robot, it could destroy parts or the assembly line. In a worst-case scenario, it could injure or cause death to the humans in the vicinity.”

Internet security professionals long have employed decoy computer systems known as “honeypots” as a way to throw cyberattackers off the trail. The research team applied the same concept to the HoneyBot, which is partially funded with a grant from the National Science Foundation. Once hackers gain access to the decoy, they leave behind valuable information that can help companies further secure their networks.

“A lot of cyberattacks go unanswered or unpunished because there’s this level of anonymity afforded to malicious actors on the internet, and it’s hard for companies to say who is responsible,” said Celine Irvene, a Georgia Tech graduate student who worked with Beyah to devise the new robot. “Honeypots give security professionals the ability to study the attackers, determine what methods they are using, and figure out where they are or potentially even who they are.”

The gadget can be monitored and controlled through the internet. But unlike other remote-controlled robots, the HoneyBot’s special ability is tricking its operators into thinking it is performing one task, when in reality it’s doing something completely different.

“The idea behind a honeypot is that you don’t want the attackers to know they’re in a honeypot,” Beyah said. “If the attacker is smart and is looking out for the potential of a honeypot, maybe they’d look at different sensors on the robot, like an accelerometer or speedometer, to verify the robot is doing what it had been instructed. That’s where we would be spoofing that information as well. The hacker would see from looking at the sensors that acceleration occurred from point A to point B.”

In a factory setting, such a HoneyBot robot could sit motionless in a corner, springing to life when a hacker gains access – a visual indicator that a malicious actor is targeting the facility.

Rather than allowing the hacker to then run amok in the physical world, the robot could be designed to follow certain commands deemed harmless – such as meandering slowly about or picking up objects – but stopping short of actually doing anything dangerous.

So far, their technique seems to be working.

In experiments designed to test how convincing the false sensor data would be to individuals remotely controlling the device, volunteers in December 2017 used a virtual interface to control the robot and could not to see what was happening in real life. To entice the volunteers to break the rules, at specific spots within the maze, they encountered forbidden “shortcuts” that would allow them to finish the maze faster.

In the real maze back in the lab, no shortcut existed, and if the participants opted to go through it, the robot instead remained still. Meanwhile, the volunteers – who have now unwittingly become hackers for the purposes of the experiment – were fed simulated sensor data indicating they passed through the shortcut and continued along.

“We wanted to make sure they felt that this robot was doing this real thing,” Beyah said.

In surveys after the experiment, participants who actually controlled the device the whole time and those who were being fed simulated data about the fake shortcut both indicated that the data was believable at similar rates.

“This is a good sign because it indicates that we’re on the right track,” Irvene said.

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 544332. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Source: http://www.rh.gatech.edu/news/604462/robot-designed-defend-factories-against-cyberthreats

April 27, 2015 By cs

New robotic vehicle provides a never-before-seen look under Antarctica

A first-of-its-kind robotic vehicle recently dove to depths never before visited under Antarctica’s Ross Ice Shelf and brought back video of life on the seafloor.

A team of scientists and engineers from the Georgia Institute of Technology assembled the unmanned, underwater vehicle on Antarctica. They deployed (and retrieved) the vehicle through a 12-inch diameter hole through 20 meters of ice and another 500 meters of water to the sea floor.

Mick West poses with Icefin, the robotic underwater vehicle built by GTRI and Georgia Tech. The team, known as Team SIMPLE (Sub-Ice Marine and PLanetary-analog Ecosytems), assembled Icefin on Antarctica.

The robotic vehicle, called Icefin, carried a scientific payload capable of measuring ocean conditions under the ice. Icefin’s readings of the environment under Antarctica’s ice shelves, and video of the life that thrives in these harsh conditions, will help understand how Antarctica’s ice shelves are changing under warming conditions, and to understand how organisms thrive in cold and light-free environments. The technologies developed for Icefin will also help in the search for life on other planets, namely Europa, a moon of Jupiter. Antarctica’s icy oceans are remarkably similar to Europa’s ice-capped oceans.

“We built a vehicle that’s a hybrid between the really small probes and the ocean-going vessels, and we can deploy it through bore holes on Antarctica,” said Britney Schmidt, an assistant professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Tech, and the principle investigator for the Icefin project. “At the same time, we’re advancing hypotheses that we need for Europa and understanding ocean systems here better. We’re also developing and getting comfortable with technologies that make polar science — and eventually Europa science — more realistic.”

Icefin was deployed as a part of the Sub Ice Marine and Planetary–analog Ecosystem (SIMPLE) program, funded by NASA and supported by NSF, with Schmidt as the principle investigator. The research team returned from Antarctica in December 2014. Icefin is planned to make its Arctic debut in summer 2016, with a return to Antarctica that fall, the team hopes.

At McMurdo Station, Schmidt and a team including Georgia Tech scientists and engineers from the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), led by principal research engineer Mick West, deployed Icefin to explore the underside of the ice shelves flowing off the continent.

“What truly separates Icefin from some of the other vehicles is that it’s fairly slender, yet still has all of the sensors that the scientists like Britney need,” West said. “Our vehicle has instrumentation aboard both for navigation and ocean science that other vehicles do not.”

The Southern Ocean can be as deep as 5,000 meters. Icefin is capable of diving 1,500 meters and can perform three-kilometer-long surveys. Previous vehicles in Icefin’s class were rated to a few hundred meters.

“We saw evidence of a complex community on the sea floor that has never been observed before, and unprecedented detail on the ice-ocean interface that hasn’t been achieved before,” Schmidt said.

Video captured by Icefin shows eerie footage of an active seafloor 500 meters under the Ross Ice Shelf.

“Biologists at McMurdo were just amazed at the amount of biology at that location which included sea stars, sponges and anemones that were at the ocean bottom,” West said. “To have our very first deep-ocean dive happen through a small hole in the ice and go all the way to the ocean bottom and get the video we did was pretty amazing.”

To get to the bottom, Icefin first had to be built. A partnership between research-focused GTRI and academic-focused School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences (EAS) enabled the team to design, build and deploy Icefin under the ice in less than a year. Traditional design cycles for these types of vehicles typically are two to three years.

The team had to design for a number of challenges associated with deploying Icefin in such an extreme environment. For example, standard electronics systems are not typically rated to the extreme temperatures found under the Ross Ice Shelf.

“We had probably 100 contingencies for if something went wrong,” West said. “Through lots of analysis and robust design, we were fortunate not to have to initiate any of them.”

Once Icefin was assembled, the vehicle was deployed through a bore hole in the ice that was 12 inches in diameter and 20 meters deep. Bore holes are often drilled on Antarctica for ocean moorings and sediment sampling.

Traditional underwater vehicles deployed on Antarctica are either “roving eyes” because they carry only a camera, or much larger vehicles that are deployed in the water on the edge of the ice shelf. Icefin fills the gap between these two kinds of vehicles: able to be deployed easily by small teams in any environment, yet still able to record oceanographic information traditionally done by much larger vehicles.

“Icefin is the most capable small vehicle that’s been down there,” Schmidt said. “What’s really rewarding is that at the same time, we were able to involve some outstanding students in the design, build and deployment of the vehicle.”

Graduate student Anthony Spears and undergraduate Matthew Meister, as well as Georgia Tech Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP) program participants, were involved in design of the vehicle. Spears and Meister also played key roles in the field integration and deployment of Icefin, along with EAS postdoctoral fellow Catherine Walker and graduate student Jacob Buffo from Icefin’s science team.

Icefin carries forward and up/down imaging and sonars and several different sensors. Icefin is also modular, similar to vehicles used on space missions. Scientists can swap sensors or point them in different directions as needed.

Traditional GPS does not work under the ice, so Icefin uses a navigation system called SLAM (simultaneous localization and mapping) to triangulate its position based on measuring the range and bearing of features on the seafloor or under the ice.

“Using algorithms such as SLAM allows us to construct a map of the unknown under-ice environment. When you can do that, you can begin to get a 3D picture of what’s going on under the water,” West said.

The sensors on Icefin are helping scientists understand how the ocean affects properties of the ice, and how the ice affects properties of the ocean. The exchange between ocean and ice is a process that mediates biology, affects the climate system and controls the stability of glaciers.

“Those are important processes that we can work out here in our backyard at the same time as we’re answering how an ice shell would reflect the ocean chemistry on Europa,” Schmidt said. “The ice shell is built out of the ocean, but how that process works is not well understood.”

Source: http://gtri.gatech.edu/casestudy/new-robotic-vehicle-provides-never-seen-look-under. This research is supported by Georgia Institute of Technology and the School of Earth and Atmospheric sciences through Schmidt’s startup funds, and partnership with GTRI. Icefin deployed to Antarctica with SIMPLE funded by NASA through grant NNX12AL65G. Deployment was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under project B259. Any conclusions or opinions are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the sponsoring agencies.

September 24, 2012 By cs

Georgia Tech partners with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

The Georgia Institute of Technology and the California Institute of Technology’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) have formed a partnership to promote and encourage collaboration in space science and technology between the two institutions.

Georgia Tech President G.P. “Bud” Peterson and JPL Director Charles Elachi signed a memorandum of understanding that outlines how the two organizations will work together to identify and enhance research and educational opportunities in space systems and instrument definition and design.

The agreement also promotes personnel exchanges between Georgia Tech and JPL to encourage participation of students, postdoctoral fellows and faculty in JPL research, as well as involve JPL engineers in research and teaching at Georgia Tech.

“We anticipate great things through this partnership,” Peterson said. “I would say the sky is the limit, but it’s really the universe. This partnership is a natural fit because both institutions thrive at the intersection of science, technology and engineering.”

Elachi said the agreement will strengthen the already robust relationship between Georgia Tech and JPL.

“Georgia Tech is one of the nation’s top engineering schools, and JPL always wants to associate itself with the best,” Elachi said. “We are excited to collaborate with the Institute on future projects that will provide great benefits for JPL, Georgia Tech and the United States.”

Dozens of Georgia Tech alumni have been hired by JPL in just the past five years, including three graduates who were part of the entry, descent and landing team for the Mars Curiosity rover. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) supports nearly one-third of the research conducted by faculty in Georgia Tech’s School of Aerospace Engineering.

JPL is NASA’s key resource for deep space systems, especially for the deployment of planetary science missions and supporting technology.

“JPL’s world leadership in deep space exploration via robotic missions is of particular interest to Georgia Tech, as we are involved in robotics research in numerous applications,” Peterson said.

Peterson thanked Bobby Braun, Georgia Tech professor of space technology, for his role in coordinating the partnership.

It’s small enough to fit inside a shoebox, yet this robot on four wheels has a big mission: keeping factories and other large facilities safe from hackers.

A first-of-its-kind robotic vehicle recently dove to depths never before visited under Antarctica’s Ross Ice Shelf and brought back video of life on the seafloor.

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