Nathan Allen

University of Auckland · Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering

Cyber‐physical (CP) attacks, originate in cyber space but damage physical infrastructure, and are a significant recent research focus. Such attacks have affected many CP systems such as smart grids, intelligent transportation systems and medical devices. In this chapter we consider techniques for the detection and mitigation of CP attacks on medica...

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed significant challenges globally. Countries have adopted different strategies with varying degrees of success. Epidemiologists are studying the impact of government actions using scenario analysis. However, the interactions between the government policy and the disease dynamics are not formally captured. We, for the f...

COVID-19 pandemic has posed significant challenges globally. Countries have adopted different strategies with varying degrees of success. Epidemiologists are studying the impact of government actions using scenario analysis. However, the interactions between the government policy and the disease dynamics are not formally captured. We, for the first...

Cyber-Physical Systems are highly safety critical, especially since they have to provide both functional and timing guarantees. Increasingly, Cyber-Physical Systems such as autonomous vehicles are relying on Artificial Neural Networks in their decision making and this has obvious safety implications. While many formal approaches have been recently...

IEC61499 is an emerging standard for the design of automation systems. While many compilers and associated tools for IEC61499 have been developed, systematic techniques for modelling the continuous dynamics of the physical processes are lacking. Current practices involve using co-simulation, where plants are modelled in a tool such as Simulink and...

Models of the cardiac conduction system are usually at two extremes: (1) high fidelity models with excellent precision but lacking a real-time response for emulation (hardware in the loop simulation); or (2) models amenable for emulation, but that do not exhibit appropriate dynamic response, which is necessary for arrhythmia susceptibility. We intr...

Many implantable medical devices, such as pacemakers, have been recalled due to failure of their embedded software. This motivates rethinking their design and certification processes. We propose, for the first time, an additional layer of safety by formalising the problem of run-time enforcement of implantable pacemakers. While recent work has form...

Automation systems used in smart grids, transportation, and medical electronics are cyber-physical in nature. Automation standards, such as IEC-61499, while well suited to the design of discrete controllers, are not ideally suited to model the dynamics of the plant. Such modelling is essential for emulation-based validation of the controllers in th...

Virtual heart models have been proposed to enhance the safety of implantable cardiac devices through closed loop validation. To communicate with a virtual heart, devices have been driven by cardiac signals at specific sites. As a result, only the action potentials of these sites are sensed. However, the real device implanted in the heart will sense...

Objective: A flexible, efficient and verifiable pacemaker cell model is essential to the design of real-time virtual hearts that can be used for closed-loop validation of cardiac devices. A new parametric model of pacemaker action potential is developed to address this need. Methods: The action potential phases are modeled using hybrid automaton...

Virtual heart models have been proposed to enhance the safety of implantable cardiac devices through closed loop validation. To communicate with a virtual heart, devices have been driven by cardiac signals at specific sites. As a result, only the action potentials of these sites are sensed. However, the real device implanted in the heart will sense...