TAS-S:  UKRI Trustworthy Autonomous Systems Node in Security

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Grant Number:  EP/V026763/1

The ability to effectively conduct a mission with varied levels of “absence of human intervention” including completely unsupervised operations, broadly categorises autonomous systems.  Typical examples, spanning an ever growing diversity of civilian, industrial and military applications across terrestrial, aerial and aquatic environments include autonomous vehicles, industrial automation, assisted living and a variety of logistical support to complement and supplement societal needs.

As technologically complex and networked cyber-physical entities, an AS needs to ensure “safe and secure” mission functionality despite the occurrence of any encountered cyber-physical disruptions.  As such, an AS is a highly-dynamic entity that needs to adapt to the vagaries of its operational environments and security profiles (including changing threats).  Providing “predictable, scalable and composable” security (of the AS assets, of the AS operations and the AS usage environment) in “uncontrolled and dynamic” operational environments is the objective of TAS-S.

TAS-S constitutes an exciting opportunity for collaborative research that is additionally supported by our unique security and AS test beds.  The project has extensive stakeholder support, both domestic and international, from academics to AS providers, AS users and AS regulators.

TAS-S targets an agenda of fundamental research that deconstructs AS security into three multi-disciplinary research strands (RS) of:

Securing the AS environment (RS1)
Securing the AS operations (RS2)
Securing the AS user environment (RS3)

Further information can be found on our research page  , the project slide decks and in this short video developed by Thales.

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This work is supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council [grant number:   EP/V026763/1]

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