Master's thesis;Developing Cybersecure CACC controller for Plexe Simulation

Are you a master student with a passion for interconnected and automated vehicle systems and want to advance your knowledge and understanding of cooperative adaptive cruise control (CACC) systems?

Then, do not miss this opportunity to work with us and be at the forefront of the research done on the safety and cybersecurity of adaptive cruise control technology used in application such as platooning and teleoperation.

About us
At Dependable Transport Systems Unit, RISE, our research focus spans across a broad spectrum of industries including automotive, railway, maritime, agriculture, and energy sectors. We are specialists in experimental verification and validation (V&V), safety for Artificial Intelligence (AI) based applications, and safety and security assurance as well as interplay.

We are experts in developing simulation-based and real-world demonstrators and tools for fault and attack injection to verify and validate safety and cybersecurity properties of the systems under test (SUT). Additionally, we are actively engaged in development and usage of standards targeting functional safety (ISO 26262) and cybersecurity engineering (ISO/SAE 21434) of road vehicles, offering accredited assessors, courses, and ongoing research initiatives in safety and cybersecurity to advance the research in the field of connected and automated systems.

As a master’s thesis candidate at Dependable Transport Systems, you will be working with safety and cybersecurity aspects of the system under test. The thesis is mainly at our office in Gothenburg, so physical presence is expected to some degree.

Thesis description
An interconnected vehicle system, in the context of vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V), may be controlled by specific types of controllers called Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control (CACC) controllers. Using these controllers, vehicles could cooperate with each other through the wireless network. Optimal design of these controllers can improve the traffic flow, fuel consumption, as well as enhancing the safety of the interconnected vehicles. This could be done e.g., using a method called platooning, which refers to when a row of vehicles is controlled by the first vehicle in a row also known as a lead vehicle.

CACC controllers enable vehicles to communicate and maintain close spacing, reducing aerodynamic drag and improving efficiency. In addition to optimizing traffic flow and enhancing safety, the design of CACC controllers should be resilient against cybersecurity attacks on the inter vehicle communication system (IVC). Thus, integrating cybersecurity measures into the CACC controllers is imperative to ensure the safety of the cooperative vehicles under attacks.

In this thesis, you will be evaluating the safety of the platoon under physical layer attacks (i.e., the attacks on wireless communication network) where the platooning application is modelled in a simulation environment called Plexe. The main objectives of this thesis project are:

• Conduct a literature review and identify the Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control (CACC) algorithms used in the platooning applications.
• Investigate CACC controllers implemented in the Plexe simulation framework[1].
• Identify and investigate different types of jamming attacks on wireless communication that can have an impact on the safety of the CACC controllers used in the context of platooning.
• Develop and implement safety mechanisms suitable for a chosen CACC controller in Plexe simulation framework.
• Evaluate and test the safety mechanism using the ComFASE[2] attack injection tool.

Thesis Requirements

• Proficiency in C++ is essential for implementing modifications of existing CACC controllers.
• Knowledge of control design theory and application is meritorious.
• Comprehensive documentation and regular status updates are integral aspects of completing this thesis work.
• In person regular meetings.

Welcome with your application!
If this thesis work sounds interesting to you and want to know more about it, please contact Mateen Malik, Dependable Transport Systems Unit, RISE mateen.malik@ri.se and Åsa Olsson, Dependable Transport Systems Unit, asa.olsson@ri.se, +46102284643. Last day of application: 30th of April 2024.

Apply today! Selection and interviews take place continuosly during and after the application period.

This Master´s thesis starts in May and ends in October 2024.

[1] https://plexe.car2x.org/.

[2] M. Malik, M. Maleki, P. Folkesson, B. Sangchoolie and J. Karlsson, "ComFASE: A Tool for Evaluating the Effects of V2V Communication Faults and Attacks on Automated Vehicles," 2022 52nd Annual IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN), Baltimore, MD, USA, 2022, pp. 185-192, doi: 10.1109/DSN53405.2022.00029.