Cluster 13
Safe and Secure Autonomous Systems
Instructors:
Alvaro Cardenas, PhD
UCSC Department of Computer Science and Engineering
Leilani Gilpin, PhD
UCSC Department of Computer Science and Engineering
David Torres-Mendoza, PhD student
UCSC Department of Computer Science and Engineering
Prerequisites: none
Preferred: Computer Science, Calculus
**This is a FIRST CHOICE cluster only**
Summary: This cluster will introduce students to the basic principles of safety and security and their role in developing trustworthy artificial intelligence (AI) agents for autonomous decision making for self-driving vehicles and computer networks.
All students in this cluster will be enrolled in the following courses:
Security and Autonomous Systems
This course will introduce computer security, including operating system security, network security, software security, and web security. We will work on developing the skills to operate computers through the command line, and how to develop the skills to participate in capture the flag competitions that focus on topics such as reverse engineering. The course will also discuss the intersection of AI and security. In particular the development of autonomous AI agents for security purposes. At the completion of this course, the students shall be able to understand the common threats faced today, and the foundational theory behind information security.
AI for Safe Autonomous Driving
This course will introduce how AI is used for autonomous driving, and how to implement different safety constraints, controls, and monitors to validate that autonomous machines are behaving in our best interest. The lectures will focus on the basics of artificial intelligence (including search, representation, and reasoning) and how to apply these techniques to steer autonomous vehicles in simulation. We will also go over how to design safety constraints, and we will design autonomous driving autonomous vehicle planners on which the concepts and ideas are illustrated. At the completion of this course, students will have gained both the theoretical knowledge and practical skills required to build and improve autonomous driving systems that are safe, efficient, and reliable.
