Alumnus and Computer Science Professor Publish Research at International Conference

In recent years, micro autonomous vehicles, such as quadcopter drones and small rovers, have been used for a variety of tasks, including mapping and rescue missions, defensive military applications, agriculture, and sea-ice management.  While reliance on these uncrewed vehicles increases, security vulnerabilities and software defects threaten the successful completion of tasks and missions. A St. Lawrence University professor has been actively working with student researchers to develop novel approaches to ensure that onboard software can automatically recover from attacks and defects quickly and safely.

Cailani “Cai” Lemieux Mack ‘23, Kevin Leach (Vanderbilt University), and Kevin Angstadt ‘14, Assistant Professor of Computer Science, recently published new research findings on the use of redundant hardware in micro autonomous vehicles to maintain operation in the face of cyber attacks and software faults. Lemieux Mack presented the findings on May 15, 2024 in Hong Kong, China at the 15th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Cyber-Physical Systems (ICCPS), a top conference in the field. A peer-reviewed manuscript entitled “Sensor Data Transplantation for Redundant Hardware Switchover in Micro Autonomous Vehicles” was published in the conference proceedings. In Computer Science, publication in conference proceedings is viewed as more prestigious than in journals—the acceptance rate in this year’s ICCPS was 28.2%.

Lemieux Mack completed this research as part of a SLU Summer Fellowship and Honors Senior Year Experience project mentored by Professor Angstadt. He was responsible for developing an algorithm that allows a small rover to switch between two onboard computers while the vehicle is in motion, and he also conducted controlled experiments on the system. Cai shared his work with the St. Lawrence community during the 2023 Festival of Science, Scholarship, and Creativity.

Cailani Lemieux Mack ‘23 graduated summa cum laude from St. Lawrence University with a BS in Computer Science (honors) and Mathematics.  He is now at the Institute for Software Integrated Systems in Vanderbilt University, where he is pursuing a PhD in Computer Science.

Kevin Angstadt ‘14 has been an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at St. Lawrence University since 2020. He teaches a breadth of computer science and data science courses, ranging from introductory courses to upper-level electives. His scholarship is in the intersection of computer architecture, programming languages, and software engineering, where he focuses on developing programming support for emerging hardware technologies. His research projects have recently been funded by the National Science Foundation, and he was named to the NNY Business’s 2024 “20 Under 40” roster, which honors Northern New York’s emerging leaders.