Where computation meets the physical world.
Power grids, roads, and hospitals now run on networks, sensors, and software. The Center for Smart Cyber-Physical Systems brings UMass Lowell researchers in networking, security, distributed computing, hardware, and AI together with domain experts to keep that infrastructure secure, resilient, and working under attack, failure, and disaster.
A center built around the systems a smart society runs on
Power grids, roads, and hospitals now depend on fast networks connected to instrumentation, control systems, and IoT devices. SCyPS develops practical, high-impact ways to make those heterogeneous distributed systems more reliable, scalable, secure, and private.
The center serves as a hub for
- research on secure, resilient, and efficient cyber-physical systems, in seven thrusts each with a named lead;
- shared testbeds and instruments, including SUMMIT, open to collaborators;
- training the cyber-physical systems workforce, from doctoral students to co-ops;
- partnership with industry, agencies, and the community on problems they actually have; and
- open-source tools and technology transfer that put results into practice.
How the center is organized
A director and an executive committee, advised by an external board and an industry council. Seven research thrusts, each with a named lead who is the point of contact for collaborators and sponsors in that area. Write to SCyPS@uml.edu or to the thrust lead directly.
Mission
The mission of the Center for Smart Cyber-Physical Systems (SCyPS) is to develop high-impact solutions to key challenges in heterogeneous distributed cyber-physical systems that support emerging smart society, data-centric applications. By taking an interdisciplinary approach with a team of science and engineering researchers, SCyPS commits to increasing cyber-physical system reliability and scalability, improving resource utilization, and guaranteeing system security and privacy. SCyPS will engage industry and community partners to meet their needs while training students and building the future workforce.
Vision
The Center for Smart Cyber-Physical Systems (SCyPS) will establish itself as an internationally recognized center for research and education focused on innovation, evaluation, and optimization of hardware and software technologies for an advanced, smart society.
Goals
Research
The SCyPS Center will become the hub of research and innovation on smart cyber-physical systems addressing challenges in healthcare, transportation and energy. SCyPS brings together a unique multidisciplinary team of experts in networking, data security, high performance computing, advanced communications, robotics, digital health care, power and nuclear engineering, and smart and connected transportation to create an environment that fosters and encourages collaboration on research central to the safety, efficiency, performance, and innovation of smart cyber-physical systems.
Student Development and Training
The SCyPS Center focuses on the education and development of students and postdoctoral researchers, providing hands-on training and an immersive environment to meet the demand for a skilled, innovative workforce of tomorrow. PhD graduates and postdocs from SCyPS will experience professional growth opportunities and will be prepared to secure prominent positions in academic institutions and research labs in major companies.
Industry and Community Engagement
The SCyPS Center will work collaboratively with industry partners to share ideas and conduct high-impact research to meet the evolving needs of industry sectors. By cultivating a symbiotic relationship, industry members will have the opportunity to proactively contribute to the success and path of the center while gaining access to talented, skilled students as co-ops, interns and employees.
One loop, three domains
Every system the center studies closes the same loop: physical processes are sensed at the edge, carried over optical and wireless transport, analysed by AI and high-performance computing, and controlled in real time. The research question is how to keep that loop fast, trustworthy, and recoverable when parts of it are attacked or fail.
Research thrusts
Seven connected lines of work, each with a named lead who is accountable for it. Most projects cut across two or three, which is the point of running them under one roof.
Smart grid cybersecurity and resilience
Attack-aware dispatch, false-data-injection detection in smart meters, observability-aware PMU networking, and joint power-communication restoration after disasters. Anchored by the SUMMIT federated testbed.
AI and agentic systems for cyber-physical control
Machine learning for intrusion detection and state recovery, physics-grounded models for network provisioning, and safety enforcement for AI agents that touch physical infrastructure.
Next-generation optical and 6G transport
Multi-band and space-division multiplexed elastic optical networks, quality-of-transmission-aware resource allocation and grooming, service prioritization for 6G transport, and the open-source FUSION framework.
Fault-tolerant distributed and edge computing
Consensus and state machine replication that stay correct under crashes and attacks, blockchain systems, satellite-edge drone coordination, and digital twins delivered from hybrid clouds.
Hardware security and high performance computing
Hardware trojan detection at RTL, silent data corruption detection from hardware counters, attested embedded devices for grid edges, and parallel I/O for data-intensive science.
Connected transportation, health, and infrastructure
Intelligent traffic and vehicular computing, medical imaging and digital health platforms, and structural health monitoring for blades, bridges, and buildings.
Nuclear energy and security
Safeguards measurement and detector modeling, security of nuclear facilities, robotic platforms for environments people should not enter, and the training that supports them.
Funded projects
Sponsored research led by center faculty, current awards first, then completed awards. Four new awards started in 2026, headed by the NSF MRI SUMMIT testbed.
SUMMIT: a three-site smart grid testbed you can attack, defend, and restore
NSF's Major Research Instrumentation program is funding a federated cyber-physical instrument that links real-time power system simulation, grid communication networks, and control and cybersecurity hardware across UMass Lowell, NYU, and West Virginia University. RTDS real-time digital simulators run high-fidelity models of the Northeast's backbone transmission grid fast enough to drive real controllers and network hardware in the loop, and a wide-area software-defined network ties the three sites together over the Internet. Researchers at any site will be able to run attack, defense, and restoration experiments on the shared testbed, and students will train on the same equipment utilities and vendors use.
Four paradigms
- Distributed hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation. Control, networking, and cybersecurity hardware closes the loop with real-time grid models running on RTDS simulators.
- Internet-in-the-loop simulation. The three sites exchange live simulation signals over a wide-area software-defined network across the public Internet.
- Heterogeneous distributed digital twins. Scoped in this phase to the RTDS simulators and the existing OPAL-RT simulator, relocated to UML North.
- Federated platform for HIL Simulation-as-a-Service. The central objective: a federation limited in this phase to the three partner universities, with WVU's existing testbed as the first instrument federated. National-scale federation is planned for Phase 2.
Phase 1 models the backbone transmission grid of the Northeast; distribution grids are future work. All power components, including generation, storage, and inverters, are modeled at high fidelity inside the RTDS simulators, so no power hardware is installed on site. Grid instances are small to medium scale for proof of concept while keeping every capability needed to scale to regional and national models. Physical asset monitoring and the electric vehicle course move to Phase 2.
Energy
SUMMIT: A Secure and Resilient Multi-site Smart Grid Testbed for Multidisciplinary Research and Training
A federated cyber-physical testbed that links RTDS real-time simulation of the Northeast transmission grid with control, networking, and cybersecurity hardware in the loop across three universities over a wide-area SDN, delivered as HIL Simulation-as-a-Service. A postdoctoral researcher will lead federation development.
PI Vinod Vokkarane; Co-PIs Orlando Arias and Lewis Tseng (UMass Lowell), Yuzhang Lin (NYU), and Anurag Srivastava (WVU); senior personnel Yan Luo, Seung Woo Son, and Christopher Niezrecki
Autonomy
ARPO-Sensor Fusion: Autonomous Robotic Planning and Optimization for Intelligence Sensor Fusion
Applied AI models that fuse multi-sensor intelligence feeds to plan and optimize autonomous robotic missions.
PI Vinod Vokkarane; performed at UMLARC
Printed electronics
BOND-AI: A Standardized Reliability Qualification Methodology for High-Temperature Printed Interfaces and Bond Joints, Enabled by Physics-Informed AI, on a 500 °C-Capable Alumina Platform
A qualification methodology for printed interfaces and bond joints that must survive 500 °C, using physics-informed AI to predict reliability rather than test it one sample at a time.
PI Alkim Akyurtlu (Director, RURI and PERC); Co-PIs Vinod Vokkarane, Oshadha Ranasingha, and Scott Stapleton; with Applied Nanotech, Bayflex Solutions, RAGE Systems, and RTX
Autonomy
ARPO: Autonomous Robotic Planning and Optimization
Planning and optimization methods for autonomous robotic systems operating over contested tactical networks.
PI Vinod Vokkarane; UMLARC and UMass Lowell
Energy
Unified Post-Disaster Restoration Planning for Cyber-Physical Power Distribution Systems
Joint restoration of the power and communication layers of a distribution grid after a disaster, including networked microgrid formation and communication-aware state recovery.
PI Vinod Vokkarane; Co-PIs Orlando Arias (UMass Lowell), Yuzhang Lin (NYU)
Energy
CyberCARE: Northeast University Cybersecurity Center for Advanced and Resilient Energy Delivery
A regional university center on cybersecurity for energy delivery systems, combining research with workforce training.
UMass Lowell PI Vinod Vokkarane; multi-university consortium
Energy
Massachusetts Advanced Nuclear and Fusion Energy Roadmaps
A statewide assessment, commissioned by Gov. Healey, of what Massachusetts would need to lead in advanced nuclear and fusion energy: stakeholder engagement across utilities, regulators, industry, labor, and communities, a public discussion series, and recommendations on workforce, regional coordination, and research capacity.
Lead: Sukesh Aghara, with UMass Lowell's Rist Institute for Sustainability and Energy
Nuclear
Intercontinental Nuclear Institute (INI)
An IAEA-funded international training program in nuclear technology, security, and safeguards for early-career professionals, run with partner institutions.
Co-director: Sukesh Aghara
Transportation
Maine Advanced Signal Control and Connected Vehicle System for Safe, Efficient and Equitable Rural Transportation (MAST)
Advanced signal control and connected vehicle systems for rural transportation in Maine.
UMass Lowell PI Yuanchang Xie
Transportation
Railroad Grade Crossing Profile Data Collection and Modeling
Collecting and modeling grade crossing profiles across the Commonwealth to support safety analysis.
PI Yuanchang Xie
Transportation
Smart Work Zone Control and Performance Evaluation Based on Trajectory Data
Work zone control and performance evaluation driven by vehicle trajectory data.
PI Yuanchang Xie
Transportation
Artificial Intelligence Framework for Crosswalk Detection across Massachusetts
Statewide crosswalk inventory and condition assessment from aerial imagery using deep learning.
Co-PI Yuanchang Xie
Transportation
Collaborative Research: Understanding the Impacts of Automated Vehicles on Traffic Flow Using Empirical Data
Empirical study of how automated vehicles change traffic flow in mixed traffic.
Co-PI Yuanchang Xie
Transportation
Ethical Algorithms in Autonomous Vehicles
The ethics of decision algorithms in autonomous vehicles, joining the center's transportation and ethics work.
Co-PI Yuanchang Xie; with Nicholas Evans
Distributed systems
Planning Federated AI-Ready Cyberinfrastructure for Advanced Microscopy and Imaging: A Teach-Explore-Design Framework for Community-Driven Infrastructure
Planning a federated, AI-ready cyberinfrastructure for advanced microscopy and imaging, designed with the community that will use it.
PI Lewis Tseng; Co-PIs Hsien-Yuan Hsu (UMass Lowell) and Yu-Tsun Shao (University of Southern California)
Distributed systems
Towards Fault-tolerant Edge Computing for Cyber-Physical Systems: Distributed Primitives for Coordination under Cyber Attacks
Coordination primitives that keep an edge cluster correct and fast enough for a control loop while under attack.
PI Lewis Tseng
HPC
Improving Data Integrity for HPC Datasets using Sparsity Profile
Detecting and correcting corruption in high-performance computing datasets using their sparsity structure.
PI Seung Woo Son; Co-PI Orlando Arias
HPC
Reliable and Efficient Data Encoding for Extreme-Scale Simulation and Analysis
Encoding schemes that keep simulation data usable and verifiable at extreme scale.
PI Seung Woo Son
Energy
Software-Defined Cyber-Physical Microgrids (SDCPM) for Agile Adaptation to High-Impact, Low-Probability Disturbances
Software-defined control of cyber-physical microgrids so they can reconfigure quickly around rare, high-impact disturbances.
PI Vinod Vokkarane
Networks
Flexible Spectrum Allocation in Next-Generation Optical Networks
Spectrum allocation algorithms for elastic optical networks, the line of work that led to the FUSION simulator.
PI Vinod Vokkarane
Energy
Resilient Sensing and Communication Architecture for Naval Energy Infrastructure Monitoring
Cross-domain design of sensing and communication for resilient monitoring of naval energy infrastructure.
PI Yuzhang Lin; Co-PI Vinod Vokkarane
Networks
Open-Source Research: Friendly Fedora and Podman
Industry support for open-source systems research in the center, including the Friendly Fedora and Podman projects and the FUSION optical network simulation framework.
PI Vinod Vokkarane
Energy
Resilient Smart Grids
Industry-sponsored work on resilient operation of smart distribution grids.
PI Vinod Vokkarane
Networks
Network Cyberinfrastructure for Biomedical Informatics Innovation
Campus cyberinfrastructure to move and analyze large biomedical data sets at UMass Lowell.
PI Vinod Vokkarane
Data systems
Information Sharing and Its Effect on Tracking Sex Offenders and Community Awareness (SORNA)
Information sharing architecture and analysis for sex offender registration and notification systems.
Co-PI Vinod Vokkarane; Lead PI Andrew Harris (UMass Lowell)
Defense
Command and Control Display Equipment (CCDE) Requirements Specification
Requirements analysis and specification for command and control display equipment.
Co-PI Vinod Vokkarane; Lead PI Kavitha Chandra (UMass Lowell)
Networks
PROPER: Parallel Resource-Optimized Provisioning of End-to-End Requests
Provisioning algorithms for end-to-end circuits across Department of Energy science networks.
PI Vinod Vokkarane
Networks
FLowell: Accelerating Data-Driven Scientific Research at UMass Lowell
Campus science network upgrade for data-intensive research across the university.
Co-PI Vinod Vokkarane; Lead PI Yan Luo (UMass Lowell)
Networks
CARGONET: Coordinated Advance Reservation for Grid over Optical Networks
Advance reservation of optical circuits for grid and data-intensive science workflows.
PI Vinod Vokkarane
Sensing
Bridging Reliability Analysis and Reality in Sensor Systems: Theories and Applications
Reliability and fault tolerance models for wireless sensor systems.
Co-PI Vinod Vokkarane; Lead PI Liudong Xing (UMass Dartmouth), with Yan Sun (URI)
Networks
COMMON: Coordinated Multi-Layer Multi-Domain Optical Network
Coordinated provisioning across layers and administrative domains in optical networks.
PI Vinod Vokkarane
Defense
MASCOT: Manycast Architecture for Service-Oriented Tactical Operations
Manycast communication architecture for service-oriented tactical networks.
PI Vinod Vokkarane
Networks
SOON: Service-Oriented Optical Networks
Service-oriented architectures for provisioning in optical networks.
PI Vinod Vokkarane, with Jason Jue (UT Dallas)
Education
NET-SEAL: Teaching Computer Networks Through Simulation Experiments and Animation Library
Simulation experiments and an animation library for teaching computer networking.
PI Vinod Vokkarane
FUSION
Open-source benchmarking and simulation framework for reproducible optical network research (routing, spectrum and space assignment, QoT models). Described in JOCN, Sept. 2026.
Containerized grid co-simulation testbed
Docker-packaged HELICS, GridLAB-D, and ns-3 federation for cyber-physical power studies on the IEEE 123-bus feeder, with DNP3 traffic between control center and devices.
SUMMIT (in development)
Three-site federated smart grid testbed built around RTDS real-time simulators and a wide-area SDN, funded by the NSF MRI award and opening in 2026-2027 to collaborators as HIL Simulation-as-a-Service.
Sponsors and partners
The agencies, companies, and institutions that have funded the center's research and that of its faculty.
Federal sponsors
State, international, and industry sponsors
Partner institutions
This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation under Grant No. 2511635. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
Research at the center is also supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, the Office of Naval Research, the U.S. Army, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, Red Hat, and Navia Energy.
People
19 faculty from three colleges, doctoral students in the director's group, and the graduates who have gone on to faculty positions and industry research.
Publications
162 peer-reviewed papers from the director and center faculty since 2019, 70 of them in journals. The newest are below; the full list is searchable and filterable on its own page.
News
What has happened in the last few months, generated from the center's own record of papers, awards, and milestones.
- October 2026 issueJournal
2 papers in Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence
Yuanchang Xie published 2 papers in Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence: A two-stage detection and segmentation framework for pedestrian crosswalk inventory and condition assessment from aerial imagery; Hybrid transformer and large language model framework for lane-level short-term travel time prediction.
- October 2026 issueJournal
QoT-Aware Dynamic Resource Allocation and Grooming in Multi-Band Space-Division Multiplexing Networks
Vinod M. Vokkarane published in IEEE/Optica Journal of Optical Communications and Networking.
- October 2026 startAward
SUMMIT: A Secure and Resilient Multi-site Smart Grid Testbed for Multidisciplinary Research and Training
National Science Foundation, Major Research Instrumentation Track 2 (Award #2511635) ($2.0M). A federated cyber-physical testbed that links RTDS real-time simulation of the Northeast transmission grid with control, networking, and cybersecurity hardware in the loop across three universities over a wide-area SDN, delivered as HIL Simulation-as-a-Service. A postdoctoral researcher will lead federation development.
- October 2026 startAward
BOND-AI: A Standardized Reliability Qualification Methodology for High-Temperature Printed Interfaces and Bond Joints, Enabled by Physics-Informed AI, on a 500 °C-Capable Alumina Platform
NextFlex (FlexTech Alliance) ($1.0M). A qualification methodology for printed interfaces and bond joints that must survive 500 °C, using physics-informed AI to predict reliability rather than test it one sample at a time.
Work with us
The center is growing with the SUMMIT testbed, and there is room for students, postdocs, and partners.
Students and postdocs
Ph.D. and M.S. students in the center work on real instruments and real data: the federated smart grid testbed, multi-band optical network simulation, fault-tolerant edge systems, and hardware security. A postdoctoral research associate position on SUMMIT is open in Fall 2026 (application). Prospective students should write to a faculty member whose work matches their interests and copy SCyPS@uml.edu.
Industry and agency partners
- Run attack, defense, and restoration experiments on the SUMMIT testbed once it opens to collaborators.
- Sponsor targeted research and gain early access to results and open-source tools such as FUSION.
- Recruit co-ops, interns, and graduates trained on cyber-physical infrastructure.
- Join proposals to NSF, DOE, DoD, and state programs as a partner site or end user.
Support the Center for Smart Cyber-Physical Systems
Contribute to research and workforce development that keeps power, transportation, and health infrastructure secure and resilient. Your gift to the center supports the SUMMIT testbed, student travel and summer research positions, and the students whose careers will run the systems a smart society depends on.
Donate to the Center