This project's overarching goal is to ensure the security and trustworthiness of cyber-physical microfluidic systems (CPMS). Microfluidic systems are devices that handle small volumes of fluids and are usually coupled with "cyber" elements such as sensors and intelligent control algorithms to improve performance and reliability. CPMS are coming of age in an era of rampant cybersecurity issues, and novel security and trust solutions are the need of the hour.
Secure and trustworthy CPMS will be realized through three central research tasks: 1) analyzing security threats, motivations, attack surfaces, and their consequences for the research landscape, industry, and society; 2) developing novel architectures, protocols, hardware, and algorithms to prevent, detect, and mitigate these threats; and 3) experiments on the benchtop to validate the developed approaches and to expose subtle issues that arise at the biochemical level.
Miniaturized, low-cost CPMS that are also secure and trustworthy will be revolutionary. In academia, this project will foster multi-disciplinary research and education for students of hardware design, computer-aided design, molecular biology, and security. In industry, growth and investment will be fostered by protecting intellectual property and providing an impetus for adoption by end users. For society, CPMS designed with security in mind should help in establishing trust.
The data collected in this research will be disseminated through publications and public portals, such as GitHub and https://sites.google.com/a/tamu.edu/security-of-microfluidic-biochips/.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
