Research Centers & Labs

Centers

Center for Accelerated Real Time Analytics (CARTA)

CARTA is an NSF sponsored IUCRC center focused on cutting edge inter-disciplinary research in real time analytics using next generation accelerated hardware.

Real time analytics is the leading edge of a smart data revolution, pushed by Internet advances in sensor hardware on one side and AI/ML streaming acceleration on the other. CARTA explores the realm streaming applications of Magna Analytics. The center works with next-generation hardware technologies, like the IBM Minsky with onboard GPU accelerated processors and Flash RAM, and smart cyber-physical sensor systems to build cognitive analytics systems and active storage devices for real time analytics. This will lead to the automated ingestion and simultaneous analytics of Big Datasets generated in various domains including cybersecurity, gealthcare, Internet of Things (IoT) and the scientific arena, and the creation of self learning, self correcting “smart” systems.

Center for Real-time Distributed Sensing and Autonomy (CARDS)

The vision of CARDS is to advance AI-based autonomy in order to deliver safe, effective, and resilient new capabilities across a variety of complex mission types, including search-and-rescue, persistent surveillance, managing, adapting and optimizing smart, connected robots and machinery, and augmenting humans in performing complex analytical and decision-making tasks. These systems are continually getting better, but to achieve their potential, there are still numerous developments required to improve their capability, command and control, interoperability, resiliency and trustworthiness. Inaugural Funding for CARDS is from the  Army Research Lab for the period 2021-2026.

Labs

Cyber Defense Lab

Cyber Defense Lab (CDL) is the primary research lab within the CSEE department’s Center for Information Security and Assurance.  Among other things, CDL hosts an isolated environment where students can research topics that would normally be considered too dangerous or disruptive to network and system resources or to be investigated in other computer labs. Located in UMBC’s Information Technology/Engineering Building (228), the CDL meets bi-weekly and hosts both a free distinguished lecture series on cybersecurity and student/faculty presentations on current research and trends.

Discovery, Research, and Experimental Analysis of Malware Lab (DREAM)

The DREAM lab looks at ways of applying machine learning to cybersecurity, and malware analysis in particular. Recent projects involve using tensor decomposition and innovative measures of string similarity to solve practical problems. The lab is also home to UMBC’s very active cyberdefense competition team, AKA the ‘CyberDawgs’.

Distributed Systems and Security Lab (DSS Lab)

DSS Lab research explores distributed systems and security in the areas of blockchain, cloud computing, published/subscribe systems, fault tolerance, cryptography, etc.

ebiquity

ebiquity’s research explores the interactions between mobile and pervasive computing, the (semantic) web and web 2.0/3.0/4.0, multi-agent systems and artificial intelligence, security/privacy/trust, and services. Group members have research interests in areas such as distributed systems, wireless networking, pervasive/mobile systems, ad-hoc networks, knowledge representation and reasoning, data management and databases, information retrieval, machine learning, personalization, security and privacy, web/data-mining, multi-agent systems and HPCC. Lab research is driven by applications in the e-sevices area — context aware environments (meeting rooms, surgical suites), social media and blogosphere, wireless web, VANETs, e-commerce and m-commerce, etc.

ECLIPSE Cluster

ECLIPSE Cluster is an assemblage from UMBC’s premier research laboratories: Mobile, Pervasive & Sensor Systems Laboratory (MPSS), Covail Analog & Digital Systems Research Laboratory, and VLSI Systems and Hardware Security Laboratory.

MPSS performs research in cyber-physical systems spanning mobile systems, renewable-energy driven systems, and low power wearable sensors. The key focus is to use cross-disciplinary techniques spanning hardware design, software systems design, and analytics to build more usable and robust systems.

Covail Lab cooperative technology research explores ultra-low-power hybrid analog-digital computational systems, sensors, and hardware security. Covail’s security-related research relates to hardware implementation, such as experimentally analyzing and estimating information leakage in integrated circuits and FPGAs and how physical design choices can affect the vulnerability of a circuit. Covail researchers also explore physically built-in protection against side-channel information leakage and unauthorized access and protecting information in low-power mixed-mode (analog & digital) circuits as required for embedded sensor applications. Other topics of interest to Covail researchers include protection against side-channel attacks, Trojan circuits, and the use of physically-unclonable functions (PUFs).

VLSI Lab focuses on EDA for reliable digital systems and low-power VLSI design. Research in Hardware Security, Power Supply Noise Analysis and Estimation, Delay testing enable development of secure and robust systems.

Knowledge, Analytics, Cognitive And Cloud Lab (KnACC)

KnACC lab in the Information Systems Department aims to address challenging issues at the intersection of data science and cloud computing, to include cybersecurity.