Projects
Sponsored research
Awards on which the director is an investigator, from the center's records: 7 active and 15 completed since the center was founded in 2019. Sponsors include NSF, ONR, the U.S. Army, DOE, and industry.
Active
SUMMIT: A Secure and Resilient Multi-site Smart Grid Testbed for Multidisciplinary Research and Training
National Science Foundation, Major Research Instrumentation Track 2 (Award #2511635) · $2.0M · Oct 2026 to Sep 2029
A federated cyber-physical testbed that links RTDS real-time simulation of the Northeast transmission grid with control, networking, and cybersecurity hardware in the loop across three universities over a wide-area SDN, delivered as HIL Simulation-as-a-Service. A postdoctoral researcher will lead federation development.
PI Vinod Vokkarane; Co-PIs Orlando Arias and Lewis Tseng (UMass Lowell), Yuzhang Lin (NYU), and Anurag Srivastava (WVU); senior personnel Yan Luo, Seung Woo Son, and Christopher Niezrecki
ARPO-Sensor Fusion: Autonomous Robotic Planning and Optimization for Intelligence Sensor Fusion
Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, Applied AI Models program · $625K · Oct 2026 to Sep 2027
Applied AI models that fuse multi-sensor intelligence feeds to plan and optimize autonomous robotic missions.
PI Vinod Vokkarane; performed at UMLARC
BOND-AI: A Standardized Reliability Qualification Methodology for High-Temperature Printed Interfaces and Bond Joints, Enabled by Physics-Informed AI, on a 500 °C-Capable Alumina Platform
NextFlex (FlexTech Alliance) · $1.0M · Oct 2026, 12 months
A qualification methodology for printed interfaces and bond joints that must survive 500 °C, using physics-informed AI to predict reliability rather than test it one sample at a time.
PI Alkim Akyurtlu (Director, RURI and PERC); Co-PIs Vinod Vokkarane, Oshadha Ranasingha, and Scott Stapleton; with Applied Nanotech, Bayflex Solutions, RAGE Systems, and RTX
ARPO: Autonomous Robotic Planning and Optimization
U.S. Army · $225K · Mar 2026 to Jul 2027
Planning and optimization methods for autonomous robotic systems operating over contested tactical networks.
PI Vinod Vokkarane; UMLARC and UMass Lowell
CyberCARED: Northeast University Cybersecurity Center for Advanced and Resilient Energy Delivery
U.S. Department of Energy · $3.5M · Oct 2024 to Sep 2027
A regional university center on cybersecurity for energy delivery systems, combining research with workforce training.
UMass Lowell PI Vinod Vokkarane; multi-university consortium
Open-Source Research: Friendly Fedora and Podman
Red Hat Inc. · $200K+ · 2021 onward
Industry support for open-source systems research in the center, including the Friendly Fedora and Podman projects and the FUSION optical network simulation framework.
PI Vinod Vokkarane
Resilient Smart Grids
Navia Energy Inc. · 2024 to 2026
Industry-sponsored work on resilient operation of smart distribution grids.
PI Vinod Vokkarane
Completed
Unified Post-Disaster Restoration Planning for Cyber-Physical Power Distribution Systems
Office of Naval Research · $550K · Jan 2024 to Oct 2025
Joint restoration of the power and communication layers of a distribution grid after a disaster, including networked microgrid formation and communication-aware state recovery.
PI Vinod Vokkarane; Co-PIs Orlando Arias (UMass Lowell), Yuzhang Lin (NYU)
Project page · 1 papers acknowledge it
Software-Defined Cyber-Physical Microgrids (SDCPM) for Agile Adaptation to High-Impact, Low-Probability Disturbances
Office of Naval Research · $300K · 2021 to 2024
Software-defined control of cyber-physical microgrids so they can reconfigure quickly around rare, high-impact disturbances.
PI Vinod Vokkarane
Project page · 4 papers acknowledge it
Flexible Spectrum Allocation in Next-Generation Optical Networks
National Science Foundation, CNS Core · $350K · 2020 to 2024
Spectrum allocation algorithms for elastic optical networks, the line of work that led to the FUSION simulator.
PI Vinod Vokkarane
Project page · 6 papers acknowledge it
Resilient Sensing and Communication Architecture for Naval Energy Infrastructure Monitoring
Office of Naval Research · $360K · 2020 to 2023
Cross-domain design of sensing and communication for resilient monitoring of naval energy infrastructure.
PI Yuzhang Lin; Co-PI Vinod Vokkarane
Project page · 4 papers acknowledge it
Network Cyberinfrastructure for Biomedical Informatics Innovation
NSF CC*DNI · $1.02M · 2015 to 2019
Campus cyberinfrastructure to move and analyze large biomedical data sets at UMass Lowell.
PI Vinod Vokkarane; Co-PIs Yan Luo and Yu Cao
Project page · 1 papers acknowledge it
Information Sharing and Its Effect on Tracking Sex Offenders and Community Awareness (SORNA)
National Institute of Justice · $1M · 2015 to 2019
Information sharing architecture and analysis for sex offender registration and notification systems.
Co-PI Vinod Vokkarane; Lead PI Andrew Harris (UMass Lowell)
Command and Control Display Equipment (CCDE) Requirements Specification
U.S. Air Force · $865K · 2017 to 2018
Requirements analysis and specification for command and control display equipment.
Co-PI Vinod Vokkarane; Lead PI Kavitha Chandra (UMass Lowell)
PROPER: Parallel Resource-Optimized Provisioning of End-to-End Requests
U.S. Department of Energy, ASCR · $401K · 2014 to 2018
Provisioning algorithms for end-to-end circuits across Department of Energy science networks.
PI Vinod Vokkarane
Project page · 4 papers acknowledge it
FLowell: Accelerating Data-Driven Scientific Research at UMass Lowell
NSF CC*IIE · $500K · 2014 to 2017
Campus science network upgrade for data-intensive research across the university.
Co-PI Vinod Vokkarane; Lead PI Yan Luo (UMass Lowell)
CARGONET: Coordinated Advance Reservation for Grid over Optical Networks
NSF NeTS Small · $325K · 2012 to 2017
Advance reservation of optical circuits for grid and data-intensive science workflows.
PI Vinod Vokkarane
Project page · 4 papers acknowledge it
Bridging Reliability Analysis and Reality in Sensor Systems: Theories and Applications
NSF CSR Small · $441K · 2011 to 2015
Reliability and fault tolerance models for wireless sensor systems.
Co-PI Vinod Vokkarane; Lead PI Liudong Xing (UMass Dartmouth), with Yan Sun (URI)
Project page · 1 papers acknowledge it
COMMON: Coordinated Multi-Layer Multi-Domain Optical Network
U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science · $525K · 2010 to 2013
Coordinated provisioning across layers and administrative domains in optical networks.
PI Vinod Vokkarane
MASCOT: Manycast Architecture for Service-Oriented Tactical Operations
U.S. Marine Corps · $50K · 2008
Manycast communication architecture for service-oriented tactical networks.
PI Vinod Vokkarane
SOON: Service-Oriented Optical Networks
NSF NeTS Small · $476K · 2006 to 2011
Service-oriented architectures for provisioning in optical networks.
PI Vinod Vokkarane, with Jason Jue (UT Dallas)
NET-SEAL: Teaching Computer Networks Through Simulation Experiments and Animation Library
NSF CCLI · $168K · 2006 to 2010
Simulation experiments and an animation library for teaching computer networking.
PI Vinod Vokkarane