Hybrid Data Architecture for Secure Data Management in Industry 4.0

April 2016 - Present

• Proposed a hybrid information architecture based on decentralized blockchains, cloud-based WORM storage and ordinary cloud storage for managing manufacturing data securely
• Identified a need for low-cost IoT-based systems to capture, identify, preprocess, encrypt and transmit factory floor data to the corresponding data storage subsystems
• Designed and demonstrated a PoC for such hybrid architecture that can support low cost IoT-based systems that are retrofittable to factories today
• Published in IEEE PerCom Workshops, 2019

Digital Threads: Secure Management of IoT sensor BigData in Manufacturing and Trustless Network Challenges

July 2015 - Present

• Developing a robust secure IoT sensor network for supporting secure data extraction from factory machines
• Data extracted from sensors will be sent to the cloud for storage as digital thread, serving as Big Data for manufacturing
• Challenges from trustless network when sharing digital thread information in the manufacturing federation
• Published in IEEE BigDataSecurity 2016

Isolation based Mitigation of Security Vulnerabilities in Architectures of Autonomous Vehicles

Intel Labs, Intel Corporation, Oregon, USA
May 2017- August 2017

• Researched and identified security vulnerabilities in autonomous vehicle architecture
• Built a simulation testbed for in-vehicular network for an autonomous car and demonstrated vulnerabilities of different architectures using real-time attacks
• Implemented and demonstrated an isolation-based architecture as mitigation

Video-analysis Inference automateD ECG (VID-ECG)

M.S. Thesis, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA
January 2013 - December 2015

• Design and implementation of a pulse extraction system from facial videos using video processing, signal processing and bioinstrumentation methods.
• Achieved automated heart beat detection and variability calculation with a higher level of accuracy and improved resolution than previous methods.

ReCognize: Reliable Cognitive Radio for Smart Grid

Advanced Digital Sciences Center (ADSC) - Illinois in Singapore, Singapore
September 2012 - December 2012

Design of a basic system model for efficient protection against major attacks and to support a security protocol in Cognitive Radio based future Smart Grid networks.

Main Contributions:
Researched on security protocols to support reliable, efficient, adaptive and low cost method of communication in Cognitive Radio Networks. Researched on aspects of implementing security and privacy for Cognitive radio networks in future Smart Grids networks. Independently handled these crucial research / tasks:

• Study and design of a security threats in a cognitive radio networks.
• Surveyed the vulnerabilities and prepared an attack tree for Cognitive radio based smart grid networks. Also detailed study on the Privacy aspects of users in Smart Grid network.
• Design of a basic system model for efficient protection against major attacks and to support a security protocol.

60GHz Chipset Development A*STAR Flagship Project

Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR),
Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R), Singapore, September 2009 - June 2012

Collaboration of A*Star Exploit Technologies and NTU
Development of IEEE-compliant chipset (MAC+baseband) for next generation millimeter wave-based WPANs.

Main Contributions:
Designed major modules and developed Medium Access Control (MAC) layer for IEEE compliant chipsets based on ultra high speed 60GHz millimetre-wave based communication technologies. Responsible for these crucial modules (both hardware and firmware):

• Challenging Power management modules for extremely low power chipset (<60mW)
• Security module based on 802.1X
• Management Information Base
• Optimized architecture for more efficient interfacing
• Sub-system integration and detailed testing on platform

Robust Mesh Enabled WiMedia Network Project

Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR),
Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R), Singapore, March 2008 - September 2009

A*STAR Towards Gigabit Personal Connectivity Program
Development of a generic and standalone IP connectivity solution based on WiMedia Link Layer.

Main Contributions:
Designed major modules and successfully implemented a prototype of WiMedia Link Layer protocol. Independently handled these crucial modules/tasks:

• Connection and de-association mechanisms
• Power Management module
• Cross platform compliable GUI development
• Optimized architecture for more efficient interfacing
• Sub-system integration, system testing and demo of project

Security Issues in Networked Wireless Pacemakers

August 2014 - December 2014

• Studied the vulnerabilities of wireless pacemakers and the susceptibilities exposed by network security experts till date
• Discussed future directions that security protocol and methods can be developed, tested and regulated further for implantable medical devices such as pacemakers

Cardiological Monitoring System

August 2014 - December 2014

• Designed a system for real-time analysis of heart activity by acquired ECG signal
• System conprises of an analog 3-lead ECG circuit interfaced with a digital filtering module in Labview
• Unique features built for continuous monitoring of subjects include visible indication for pulse pattern and audible alert systems in the case of abnormalities in heart rate detected

CoBuy: Share the Deal and Save Your Money

January 2014 - August 2014

Designed a mobile application prototype,CoBuy that combines the features of a social-network cum e-commerce website under a single platform to empower consumers to:

• Post/view local deals online
• Express interest to buy certain units of a deal online
• Interact online to setup a meet near shop location to make the bulk purchase and split the deal online.
• Designed iOS prototype for uses location based posting/listing, providing safe networking environment for buyers and motivation rewards (user rating) for completing the deal, all under a single user-friendly platform. Our initial prototype on iOS has recently been demonstrated in the open-house poster and demo sessions at University of Illinois, held in May 2014.

Video Surveillance for Human Emotion Identification (VSHEI)

January 2014 - August 2014

• Designed VSHEI, a system to extract heart pulse from human facial videos, that is suitable for varied environments and tolerant to natural motion and movements.
• We highly improve results from previously proposed method using Eulerian Color Magnification with results that are sharper, less noisy and more accurate
• Able to handle different lighting, indoor/outdoor condition, skin type and movement levels and subjects at different distance and facial angles
• Demonstrated usage of the results for emotion analysis by heart rate variability detection

Modeling of database usage and availability rates for Implantable Medical Device (IMD) based networks

August 2013 - December 2013

• Modelled the availability of the database for access in a multiuser environment for IMD networks and evaluated methods to optimize the system
• Modeling and characterizing the availability will be useful to change access frequency for various users and also provide priority access when needed in certain cases
• A basic three user network has been used to model a stochastic activity network (SAN) model in Mobius and solve it numerically for ranges of access frequencies to demonstrate the impact on the overall availability of the database to other users in the network.
• Model can be used for incorporating dynamics of database availability amd design for low power, secure and limited database access systems for IMDs

• A. Adhikari, A. Hojjati, J. Shen, J. T. Hsu, W. P. King and M. Winslett, Trust Issues for Big Data about High-Value Manufactured Parts, 2016 IEEE 2nd International Conference on Big Data Security on Cloud (BigDataSecurity), IEEE International Conference on High Performance and Smart Computing (HPSC), and IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Data and Security (IDS), New York, NY, USA, 2016, pp. 24-29.

• A. Adhikari, (2015), Video-analysis Inference Automated ECG (VID-ECG): Improving Video-based Heart Rate Detection and Exposing Security Risks of ECG-based Biometric Authentication (Master’s thesis). University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA.

• R. J. Jayabal, S.Y. Law, A. Adhikari, B. Jin, J. Chen, I2R Disclosure 2010109, A Hardware Rate Adaptation Implementation and Control Interface for Very High Speed Wireless Communications, 2011

• A. Adhikari, ICT Programmes for Decentralization and Development,ITU Telecom ICT Book for the Youth Forum, pp.351-352,Dec 2006.