News
The center's newsletter first, then every paper, award, and milestone from the last three months, newest first, generated from the center's own record.
Newsletters
Print edition
August 2026
Volume 1, Number 1: the director’s letter, a project, a faculty member, and a student, plus the month’s papers and awards.
Monthly issues, generated from the center’s records and sent to members and partners:
Videos
Short videos made from the center’s own records, free to share.
The loop in 40 seconds
Seven years in sixty seconds
Transcript
October 2019 to September 2026 Seven years in sixty seconds. The Center for Smart Cyber-Physical Systems at UMass Lowell Peer-reviewed papers, year by year: 2019: 4, 2020: 21, 2021: 22, 2022: 23, 2023: 37, 2024: 38, 2025: 44, 2026: 26. 2019 counts October to December, from the center's founding; 2026 counts through September. Who works with whom, year by year: the collaboration graph grows from 2019 to 2026 to 19 people and 29 working pairs. Milestones: 2019: the center is founded by five faculty; 2021: Vinod Vokkarane becomes director; 2024: ONR post-disaster restoration award, and the DOE CyberCARED consortium; 2026: NSF instrumentation award for SUMMIT, a three-university grid testbed; 2026: BOND-AI, printed electronics with industry partners. By the numbers: 215 peer-reviewed papers since 2019; $6.2M UMass Lowell share of the awards the center led; 20 faculty in four colleges; 16 doctoral students today. Seven years in, and just getting started.. Sense. Communicate. Decide with people. Act. smartcyberphysical.org
Thrust: Resilient energy and infrastructure
Transcript
Research thrust Resilient energy and infrastructure. What keeps the grid, a reactor, a highway, or a bridge working when the computers and networks that run it are attacked or knocked out, and how does it come back? Lines of work: Seeing the grid under attack; Restoring power and communication together; Nuclear energy and security; Transportation and civil infrastructure. Resilient energy and infrastructure. Co-leads: Sukesh Aghara and Yuanchang Xie smartcyberphysical.org/research-energy.html
Thrust: Next-generation networks and trusted devices
Transcript
Research thrust Next-generation networks and trusted devices. How do you build networks that carry cyber-physical traffic at the speed AI needs, and devices at the edge that can be trusted? Lines of work: Multi-band and space-division optical networks; Fault-tolerant distributed and edge computing; Zero trust for cyber-physical systems; Printed electronics for hard places. Next-generation networks and trusted devices. Co-leads: Lewis Tseng and Orlando Arias smartcyberphysical.org/research-networks.html
Thrust: Cyber-physical AI
Transcript
Research thrust Cyber-physical AI. How does a system that senses the physical world turn what it senses into decisions it can be trusted to act on? Lines of work: Digital twins, sensing, and state recovery; Learning without moving the data; High-performance computing and data integrity; Agentic control within limits. Cyber-physical AI. Co-leads: Yan Luo and Seung Woo Son smartcyberphysical.org/research-cpai.html
Thrust: People in the loop
Transcript
Research thrust People in the loop. When a person and an AI share a decision about a system that can hurt someone, who decides what, and how do they learn to trust each other? Lines of work: Trust between people and robots; Ethics of algorithms that act; Decision-making under pressure; Education and workforce. People in the loop. Co-leads: Paul Robinette and Nicholas Evans smartcyberphysical.org/research-people.html
SUMMIT in 40 seconds
Transcript
NSF Major Research Instrumentation, Award #2511635 SUMMIT. One grid experiment across three universities The UMass Lowell main site, a wide-area software-defined network, and federation sites at NYU Tandon and West Virginia University. What it makes possible: Real-time simulation of the Northeast transmission grid; Control, networking, and cybersecurity hardware in the loop; Three universities federated over a wide-area network; Hardware-in-the-loop simulation offered as a service. SUMMIT at a glance: $2.0M NSF instrumentation award; 3 universities, one testbed; 4 Co-PIs with the PI at UMass Lowell. Built at UMass Lowell. October 2026 to September 2029 smartcyberphysical.org/summit.html
Lab life
Transcript
Advanced Communication Networks Laboratory. Lab life: the people behind the research. Fifteen photos of lab members at conferences, poster sessions, demonstrations, and dinners, including: Arash Deylamsalehi presenting his research; The lab's ESnet OSCARS demonstration at SC15; At the Electrical and Computer Engineering demonstration booth; The RINSE poster: network survivability and the environment; Energy-cost-aware routing with real-time power prices. Come work with us. smartcyberphysical.org/acnl
Student: Arash Rezaee
Transcript
Student spotlight Arash Rezaee. Ph.D. Candidate, joined 2022 Arash Rezaee, Advised by Vinod Vokkarane. AI-driven resource allocation in optical networks. AI services over a software-defined, multi-layer network Meet the lab. Advanced Communication Networks Laboratory smartcyberphysical.org/acnl
Student: Ryan McCann
Transcript
Student spotlight Ryan McCann. Ph.D. Candidate, joined 2024 Ryan McCann, Advised by Vinod Vokkarane. Co-founder and lead developer of FUSION, supported by MIT I-Corps and AT&T. FUSION: reinforcement learning over a software-defined optical mesh Meet the lab. Advanced Communication Networks Laboratory smartcyberphysical.org/acnl
Student: Kenneth Patrick Watts
Transcript
Student spotlight Kenneth Patrick Watts. Ph.D. Candidate, joined 2022 Kenneth Patrick Watts, Advised by Vinod Vokkarane. Scalable, real-time detection of cyber attacks on smart power grids with machine learning. NATIG co-simulation of a distribution grid and its wireless network Meet the lab. Advanced Communication Networks Laboratory smartcyberphysical.org/acnl
Student: Mehran Sasaninia
Transcript
Student spotlight Mehran Sasaninia. Ph.D. Candidate, joined 2023 Mehran Sasaninia, Advised by Vinod Vokkarane. Federated learning to detect cyber attacks in the smart grid. Federated learning across grid sites with a global model aggregator Meet the lab. Advanced Communication Networks Laboratory smartcyberphysical.org/acnl
Student: Ayush Pandey
Transcript
Student spotlight Ayush Pandey. Ph.D. Student, joined 2024 Ayush Pandey, Advised by Vinod Vokkarane. Smart grid cybersecurity and AI for cyber-physical systems. AI-based intrusion detection protecting a transmission grid's control loop Meet the lab. Advanced Communication Networks Laboratory smartcyberphysical.org/acnl
Student: Suvhasis Mukhopadhyay
Transcript
Student spotlight Suvhasis Mukhopadhyay. Ph.D. Student, joined 2024 Suvhasis Mukhopadhyay, Advised by Vinod Vokkarane. Impact of individual physical layer impairments on elastic optical network performance. Impairment-aware allocation of spectrum, modulation, and power on a flex-grid link Meet the lab. Advanced Communication Networks Laboratory smartcyberphysical.org/acnl
Paper: FUSION
Transcript
A paper in 30 seconds FUSION: A Unified Benchmarking Framework for Reproducible Optical Network Research. Journal of Optical Communications and Networking, 2026 The problem: Why it matters: Results in optical networking are getting harder to compare and reproduce: architectures now range from single-band to multi-band and space-division systems, and published numbers depend on simulation assumptions that are rarely spelled out. What we found: The result: Case studies show the framework benchmarking heterogeneous architectures and policies on equal terms, and a mapping of published studies onto FUSION's capabilities shows how much of the field's recent work it can already reproduce. Who: Authors: A. Rezaee, R. McCann, V. M. Vokkarane Read it: doi.org/10.1364/JOCN.593123 More research. Advanced Communication Networks Laboratory smartcyberphysical.org/acnl.html
Paper: QoT-aware allocation and grooming
Transcript
A paper in 30 seconds QoT-Aware Dynamic Resource Allocation and Grooming in Multi-Band Space-Division Multiplexing Networks. Journal of Optical Communications and Networking, 2026 The problem: Why it matters: Multi-band space-division multiplexing can scale backbone capacity, but allocating resources dynamically means accounting for inter-core crosstalk, inter-channel stimulated Raman scattering, amplifier noise, and nonlinear interference at the same time, and their effects differ by band and by core count. What we found: The result: Ignoring frequency-dependent crosstalk causes systematic, band-dependent errors in which modulation formats are feasible in dense-core fibers. Who: Authors: A. Rezaee, F. Arpanaei, R. McCann, H. Rabbani, J. Hernández, M. Brandt-Pearce, V. M. Vokkarane Read it: doi.org/10.1364/JOCN.596435 More research. Advanced Communication Networks Laboratory smartcyberphysical.org/acnl.html
Paper: spectral versus spatial scaling
Transcript
A paper in 30 seconds QoT-Aware Spectral and Spatial Scaling Trade-offs in Multi-Band Space Division Multiplexing over EONs. Journal of Optical Communications and Networking, 2026 (invited) The problem: Why it matters: Backbone capacity can grow two ways, by adding bands beyond the C-band or by adding fiber cores, and physical-layer impairments mean the two cannot be judged separately: the L-band suffers more crosstalk, and dense cores make crosstalk dominate. What we found: The result: The best band plan depends on the core count. C+L wins for 4 and 7 cores; C+S wins for 13 cores because the L-band is hit harder by crosstalk; at 19 cores the system is crosstalk-dominated and only C+S holds up. Who: Authors: A. Rezaee, F. Arpanaei, R. McCann, L. Nadal, J. A. Hernández, V. M. Vokkarane Read it: doi.org/10.1364/JOCN.596854 More research. Advanced Communication Networks Laboratory smartcyberphysical.org/acnl.html
Why do a Ph.D. here?
Transcript
Ph.D. positions Build the systems the world runs on.. Doctoral research at the Center for Smart Cyber-Physical Systems, UMass Lowell Four research thrusts: Resilient energy and infrastructure; Next-generation networks and trusted devices; Cyber-physical AI; People in the loop. Real instruments, not only simulation: SUMMIT: a three-university grid testbed; NATIG: grid and wireless co-simulation; FUSION: open-source optical network research. Where our Ph.D. graduates go: Assistant Professor, Southern Illinois University Carbondale; Assistant Professor, Montana State University; Research Engineer, AIMdyn, Inc.; Software Engineer, KLA. The center today: 16 doctoral students; 20 faculty in four colleges; 215 papers since 2019. Join us. Ph.D. positions and how to apply smartcyberphysical.org/positions.html
Showing all 22 items
Recent items
- January 2027 issueJournal
2 papers in Accident Analysis & Prevention
Yuanchang Xie published 2 papers in Accident Analysis & Prevention: Balancing adversariality and naturalness in autonomous vehicle testing scenario generation via multi-objective reinforcement learning; Toward explainable traffic crash liability analysis via neural-symbolic multimodal reasoning: Integrating visual perception with legal knowledge graphs.
- January 2027 issueJournal
On the impact of pulse shaping for optical fiber networks
Vinod M. Vokkarane published in Optical Fiber Technology.
- December 2026 issueJournal
A Self-Supervised Contrastive Learning-Based Method for Portable Executable Malware Classification
Yan Luo published in IEEE Access.
- December 2026 issueChapter
The Cobra Effect in Trust Repair: Unintended Consequences of Rebuilding Trust in Human-Robot Collaboration
Paul Robinette published in Lecture Notes in Computer Science.
- November 2026Journal
Novel microfluidic lab-on-circuit for QCM-P oscillators
Yan Luo published in Sensors and Actuators A: Physical.
- November 2026Conference
Poster: When Safer AI Makes the System Less Safe: Inference Reuse and Systemic Risk in Networked Autonomy
Lewis Tseng published in Proceedings of the Twenty-seventh International Symposium on Theory, Algorithmic Foundations, and Protocol Design for Mobile Networks and Mobile Computing.
- October 2026Journal
2 papers in Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence
Yuanchang Xie published 2 papers in Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence: A two-stage detection and segmentation framework for pedestrian crosswalk inventory and condition assessment from aerial imagery; Hybrid transformer and large language model framework for lane-level short-term travel time prediction.
- October 2026Journal
Inferring coupling strength from the Kuramoto order parameter
Seung Woo Son published in Journal of the Korean Physical Society.
- October 2026Journal
QoT-Aware Dynamic Resource Allocation and Grooming in Multi-Band Space-Division Multiplexing Networks
Vinod M. Vokkarane published in IEEE/Optica Journal of Optical Communications and Networking.
- October 2026Journal
Scale-freeness under node removal: A finite-size scaling perspective
Seung Woo Son published in Physical Review E.
- October 2026Award
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). 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.
- October 2026Award
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
SEMI/FlexTech ($500K). Printed interfaces and bond joints that must survive 500 °C are qualified today one sample at a time. BOND-AI builds a standard qualification method and uses physics-informed AI to predict reliability, so fewer parts need to be destroyed to prove a process.
- October 2026Milestone
Four research thrusts now organize the center's work, each with two co-leads: resilient energy and infrastructure (Aghara and Xie), next-generation networks and trusted devices (Tseng and Arias), cyber-physical AI (Luo and Son), and people in the loop (Robinette and Evans)
- October 2026Milestone
New collaborators: Junbo Zhao of Dartmouth, who directs the DOE CyberCARED consortium; Maïté Brandt-Pearce of the University of Virginia; and Balagangadhar Bathula of AT&T. Sherpa 6 and the UMass Lowell Applied Research Corporation join the center's sponsors and partners
- October 2026Milestone
The UMass Lowell Open-Source Club is now run through the center, with the director as academic advisor and Red Hat as industry sponsor, alongside the Red Hat-sponsored Friendly Fedora capstone that has run every year since 2020
- October 2026Milestone
Short videos on the center's website: the center's loop in 40 seconds, seven years in sixty seconds, the four thrusts, SUMMIT, lab life, student spotlights, and three papers in 30 seconds each, all gathered on the News page
- October 2026Milestone
SUMMIT begins
NSF's $2M Major Research Instrumentation Track 2 award funds a three-site federated smart grid testbed with NYU and West Virginia University, starting October 1, 2026; a postdoctoral search is under way.
- October 2026Milestone
ARPO-Sensor Fusion starts under the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative's Applied AI Models program ($625K, of which $247K to UMass Lowell and UMLARC), performed at UMLARC
- September 2026Journal
A Novel Distributed Sensor Network to Assess Wind Turbine Blade Acoustics for Structural Health Monitoring
Yan Luo published in Wind Energy.
- September 2026Journal
Harmonizing Computing and Computer Engineering Education With Workforce Soft-Skill Signals: A Longitudinal Study of Short-Form Job Posts (2012–2025)
Lewis Tseng published in CoED.
- September 2026Journal
Merging behavior under varying work zone sign scenarios: A heterogeneity-based analysis
Yuanchang Xie published in Accident Analysis & Prevention.
- September 2026Milestone
The FUSION benchmarking framework paper appears in JOCN's special issue on benchmarking in optical networks, followed in October by a QoT-aware grooming paper for multi-band SDM networks