Dr. Fanxin Kong
Interests: Cyber-Physical Systems and Internet of Things.
Security: attack detection, diagnosis, recovery, and hidden attacks.
Assurance and safety: safe and timing-critical control, and safe reinforcement learning.
Real-time and resource management: efficiency, scheduling, and mechanism design.
Multi-agent: task allocation and planning.
Techniques: Formal methods, machine learning, control, optimization, and algorithm design.
Applications: Autonomous systems including autonomous vehicles, drones, robotic arms and dogs.
Email: fkong at nd dot edu
Other profiles: Google Scholar, dblp Entry
Short Bio
Dr. Fanxin Kong is a tenure-track assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at University of Notre Dame. Before that, he worked as a tenure-track assistant professor at Syracuse University and as a postdoctoral researcher with Prof. Insup Lee in the PRECISE Center at University of Pennsylvania. He obtained his Ph.D. in Computer Science at McGill University advised by Prof. Xue Liu. He is serving as the Information Director of ACM SIGBED.
New! I am looking for self-motivated PhD students. Interns, visiting students and scholars are all welcome. If you are interested in my research and working with me, please directly contact me with your CV.
Recent News (More)
[July 2024], Paper: our paper "Backdoor Attacks on Safe Reinforcement Learning-Enabled Cyber-Physical Systems", has been accepted by the ACM SIGBED International Conference on Embedded Software (EMSOFT), part of Embedded Systems Week (ESWEEK). Congratulations to Shixiong and all!
[July 2024], Paper: our paper "Model-free PAC Time-Optimal Control Synthesis with Reinforcement Learning", has been accepted by the 22nd International Symposium on Formal Methods and Models for System Design (MEMOCODE), part of Embedded Systems Week (ESWEEK). Congratulations to Mengyu and all!
[June 2024], Paper: our paper "CPSim: Simulation Toolbox for Security Problems in Cyber-Physical Systems", has been accepted by the ACM Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic Systems (TODAES). Congratulations to Mengyu and all! Visit our CPSim page!
[Mar. 2024], Competition: our poster "Catch You If Pay Attention: Temporal Sensor Attack Diagnosis Using Attention Mechanisms for Cyber-Physical Systems", has won the second place at 2024 ECS Research Day at Syracuse University. Congratulations to Zifan!
[Mar. 2024], Paper: our paper "LLM-enabled Cyber-Physical Systems: Survey, Research Opportunities, and Challenges", is accepted by International Workshop on Foundation Models for Cyber-Physical Systems & Internet of Things (FMSys), co-located with CPS-IoT Week 2024. Congratulations to all!
[Mar. 2024], Paper: our paper on assuring large-language models (LLMs), is accepted by the 15th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Cyber-Physical Systems (ICCPS), Poster Track, 2024. Congratulations to all!
[Mar. 2024], Paper: our paper "Recovery from Adversarial Attacks in Cyber-physical Systems: Shallow, Deep and Exploratory Works", is accepted by ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR). Congratulations to all!
[Mar. 2024], Paper: two papers are accepted by the 30th IEEE Real-Time and Embedded Technology and Applications Symposium (RTAS), Brief Presentations Track, 2024. Congratulations to all!
[Feb. 2024], Paper: our paper "Path Planning for UAVs under GPS Permanent Faults", is accepted by ACM Transactions on Cyber-Physical Systems. Congratulations to all!
[Feb. 2024], Service: I will serve as a TPC member in RTSS 2024. Please consider to submit your best work!
[Feb. 2024], Service: I will serve as the Social Media Chair in Embedded Systems Week (ESWEEK) 2024.
[Feb. 2024], Service: I will serve as a TPC member in RTCSA 2024.
[Jan. 2024], Paper: our paper "Vulnerability Analysis for Safe Reinforcement Learning in Cyber-Physical Systems", is accepted by the 15th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Cyber-Physical Systems (ICCPS), 2024. Congratulations to Shixiong and Mengyu!
[Jan. 2024], Paper: our paper "Fast Attack Recovery for Stochastic Cyber-Physical Systems", is accepted by the 30th IEEE Real-Time and Embedded Technology and Applications Symposium (RTAS), 2024. Congratulations to Lin, Luis, and all!
Recent Publications (Full Publications)
Secure & Safe Reinforcement Learning in CPS:
[EMSOFT'24] Shixiong Jiang, Mengyu Liu, and Fanxin Kong, "Backdoor Attacks on Safe Reinforcement Learning-Enabled Cyber-Physical Systems", in the ACM SIGBED International Conference on Embedded Software, part of Embedded Systems Week (ESWEEK) 2024.
[ICCPS'24] Shixiong Jiang, Mengyu Liu, and Fanxin Kong, "Vulnerability Analysis for Safe Reinforcement Learning in Cyber-Physical Systems", in the 15th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Cyber-Physical Systems, part of CPS-IoT Week 2024.
Timing-Safe Learning Enabled CPS:
[MEMCODE'24] Mengyu Liu, Pengyuan Lu, Xin Chen, Fanxin Kong, Oleg Sokolsky and Insup Lee, "Model-free PAC Time-Optimal Control Synthesis with Reinforcement Learning", in the 22nd International Symposium on Formal Methods and Models for System Design, part of Embedded Systems Week (ESWEEK) 2024.
LLM Assurance in CPS:
[ICCPS'24] Weizhe Xu, Mengyu Liu, Steven Drager, Matthew Anderson, and Fanxin Kong, "Assuring LLM-Enabled Cyber-Physical Systems", in the 15th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Cyber-Physical Systems, Poster/Demo Track, part of CPS-IoT Week 2024.
[FMSys'24] Weizhe Xu, Mengyu Liu, Oleg Sokolsky, Insup Lee, and Fanxin Kong, LLM-enabled Cyber-Physical Systems: Survey, Research Opportunities, and Challenges", International Workshop on Foundation Models for Cyber-Physical Systems & Internet of Things (FMSys), co-located with CPS-IoT Week 2024.
CPS Attack Recovery:
[RTAS'24] Lin Zhang, Luis Burbano, Xin Chen, Alvaro A. Cardenas, Steve Drager, Matthew Adderson, and Fanxin Kong, "Fast Attack Recovery for Stochastic Cyber-Physical Systems", in the 30th IEEE Real-Time and Embedded Technology and Applications Symposium, 2024.
[RTSS'23] Mengyu Liu, Lin Zhang, Vir Phoha, and Fanxin Kong, "Learn-to-Respond: Sequence-Predictive Recovery from Sensor Attacks in Cyber-Physical Systems", in the 44th IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposium, 2023.
[RTAS'23] Lin Zhang, Kaustubh Sridhar, Mengyu Liu, Pengyuan Lu, Xin Chen, Fanxin Kong, Oleg Sokolsky and Insup Lee, "Real-Time Data-Predictive Attack-Recovery for Complex Cyber-Physical Systems", in the 29th IEEE Real-Time and Embedded Technology and Applications Symposium, 2023.
[EMSOFT'21] Lin Zhang, Pengyuan Lu, Fanxin Kong, Xin Chen, Oleg Sokolsky and Insup Lee, "Real-Time Attack-Recovery for Cyber-Physical Systems using Linear-Quadratic Regulator", in the 21st ACM SIGBED International Conference on Embedded Software, 2021.
[RTSS'20] Lin Zhang, Xin Chen, Fanxin Kong, and Alvaro A. Cardenas, "Real-Time Recovery for Cyber-Physical Systems using Linear Approximations", in the 41st IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposium, 2020.
[ICCPS'18] Fanxin Kong, Meng Xu, James Weimer, Oleg Sokolsky and Insup Lee, "Cyber-Physical System Checkpointing and Recovery", in the 9th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Cyber-Physical Systems, 2018.
CPS Attack Detection & Diagnosis:
[RTSS'23] Zifan Wang, Lin Zhang, Qinru Qiu, and Fanxin Kong, "Catch You If Pay Attention: Temporal Sensor Attack Diagnosis Using Attention Mechanisms for Cyber-Physical Systems", in the 44th IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposium, 2023.
[DAC'22] Lin Zhang, ZifanWang, Mengyu Liu, and Fanxin Kong, "Adaptive Window-Based Sensor Attack Detection for Cyber-Physical Systems", in the 59th Design Automation Conference (DAC), 2022.
[RTAS'21] Francis Akowuah and Fanxin Kong, "Real-Time Adaptive Sensor Attack Detection in Autonomous Cyber-Physical Systems", in the 27th IEEE Real-Time and Embedded Technology and Applications Symposium, 2021.
[DAC'20] Tianjia He, Lin Zhang, Fanxin Kong, and Asif Salekin, "Exploring Inherent Sensor Redundancy for Automotive Anomaly Detection", in the 57th Design Automation Conference, 2020.
