Research, development and innovation

Toolchain to design a swarm of autonomous cyber-physical systems 
The CPSwarm project aims to advance the development of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), which are central to many large-scale, safety-critical applications like transportation and smart cities. Despite their widespread use, CPS development remains complex due to the lack of a consolidated system integration approach. CPSwarm proposes a new science of system integration along with supporting tools to facilitate the engineering of CPS swarms - large groups of CPS that collaborate based on local policies and exhibit collective behavior to solve complex, real-world problems. Leveraging model-centric design and predictive engineering, the project toolchain enables the configuration, performance testing, and massive deployment of collaborative, autonomous CPS. The project aims to advance large-scale CPS engineering, reducing development time and costs. These results will be tested on real-world use cases including swarms of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, autonomous freight vehicle driving systems, and smart bikes.

Verification Engineering of Safety and Security Critical Industrial Applications 
The VESSEDIA project aims to increase the safety and security of new software applications and devices, particularly those connected to the Internet. The project will enhance and scale up the Frama-C Analysis platform, a predominantly open-source software analysis tool, to help developers create safer and secure connected applications. Focusing on the Internet of Things (IoT), VESSEDIA will develop a methodology for effective use of source code analysis tools, enhance the Frama-C toolbox for more efficient implementation, and test its capabilities on typical IoT applications, including an IoT Operating System (Contiki). The project also plans to standardise the toolbox usage, contribute to the Common Criteria certification process, and define a label ""Verified in Europe"" for software products validated with European technologies like Frama-C.

A Novel, Comprehensible, Ultra-Fast, Security-Aware CPS Simulator
The COSSIM project aims to resolve the challenge faced by Cyber-Physical System (CPS) designers, which is the absence of accurate and efficient simulation tools and models for system design and analysis. Current solutions either focus predominantly on performance, necessitate high computational power, or function at high abstraction levels without the required accuracy. COSSIM intends to provide an open-source framework that offers integrated simulations of both the networking and processing aspects of CPS, greater accuracy in terms of power consumption, faster simulation speed, and additional CPS aspect reporting, including underlying security. The approach involves the development of a new simulator framework that combines a full-system simulator with a novel network simulator, incorporating innovative power consumption and security measurement models. Additionally, COSSIM seeks to improve simulation time performance by applying hardware acceleration using field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). This will result in a faster, more accurate framework that provides more extensive reporting than existing solutions.

The STANCE project aims to improve system security - the immunity of a system to illicit modifications by malicious parties - a crucial requirement for a dependable Information Society. One strategy to achieve this is program analysis, which uses formal techniques to semi-automatically detect unintended behaviours in software systems. However, this approach is still developing in security, facing challenges in detecting flaws and limited support for programming languages and industrial verification procedures. STANCE aims to advance software security by creating program analysis tools that can verify the security of complex software systems made in C, C++, and Java. It will build on formal methods, static and dynamic program analysis tools, security evaluation expertise, and industry-specific knowledge. The resulting toolbox will enhance trust and cost-effectiveness in security processes, profoundly impacting software security assurance. The project brings together 10 organisations from 5 countries, including leading industrial partners, SMEs, and academic and research entities.

New embedded Systems arcHItecturE for multi-Layer Dependable solutions
The nSHIELD project aims to enhance Security, Privacy, and Dependability (SPD) in Embedded Systems (ES). Building upon the ""pSHIELD"" pilot project, nSHIELD treats SPD as built-in rather than add-on features. The project seeks to develop and consolidate SPD technologies at node, network, middleware, and overlay levels. Its goal is to create a robust, modular, and scalable architectural framework with tools and metrics that can boost SPD levels in any application domain with minimal engineering effort. The framework covers the entire ES lifecycle and its effectiveness will be tested through four scenarios.