Research Projects

As computer networking continues to grow into its role as a core infrastructure of our world, our lab believes that this maturing discipline has much to learn from the realm of civil engineering. Namely, we believe that the computer networking discipline should follow the following key guidelines from civil engineering ethics:

Mission-critical voice (MCV) communications systems are employed by public safety organizations, law enforcement, emergency medical services, and others. This project aims to evaluate the impact of impairments such as background noise, delay, and communication errors on the intelligibility of MCV, i.e., the ability of first responders to understand the communication. We have designed and built a MCV testbed and conduct human subject studies with first-responder volunteers.

As part of the DARPA RADICS program, we designed and evaluated a self-configuring backup mesh network for the electrical grid called the Phoenix Secure Emergency Network (PhoenixSEN). PhoenixSEN provides a secure drop-in replacement for grid's primary communication networks during black-start recovery. The network combines existing and new technologies, can work with a variety of link-layer protocols, emphasizes manageability and auto-configuration, and provides services and applications for coordination of people and devices including voice, text, and SCADA communication.

Texas A&M Internet 2 Technology Evaluation Center (ITEC) and Columbia University IRT Lab (as a subcontractor) are developing a secure data and voice network architecture that supports secure landline-to-landline, landline-to-mobile, and mobile-to-mobile communications. It is part of the newly launched Secure and Resilient Mobile Network Infrastructure (SRMNI) project, a joint research and development program of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).