Andrew Loveless


Welcome to my site! I am a researcher and engineer in the Avionic Systems Division at NASA Johnson Space Center. My official title is Command and Data Handling System Architect. My focus is on improving the safety and performance of fault-tolerant computer systems and deterministic networks to enable crewed exploration of deep space. My work spans multiple areas, including distributed systems, real-time systems. networking, and security.

I earned a Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) from the University of Michigan, where I was fortunate to be co-advised by Ron Dreslinski and Baris Kasikci. Before that, I completed an M.S. in CSE at the University of Michigan and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering at Purdue University.

Curriculum Vitae: PDF
My Wiki (requires login): Link


Announcements
  • Had fun presenting at EMSOFT '23 and visiting colleagues in Germany! photo at Ishtar Gate (Sep. 2023)
  • CrossTalk was accepted to appear at EMSOFT '23 (June 2023)
  • I am grateful to have been awarded a NASA JSC Center Director’s Commendation Award (June 2023)
  • It was great catching up with colleagues and friends at S&P '23! photo with Linh (May 2023)
  • I successfully defended my Ph.D. thesis! group photo (Apr. 2023)
  • CHEX-MIX was accepted to appear at EuroS&P '23. Congrats Deepika! (Mar. 2023)
  • PCspooF was accepted to appear at S&P '23 (June 2022)
  • RBS was accepted to appear at DASC '22. Congrats Robert! (Jan. 2022)
  • Gatekeeper was accepted to appear at DASC '21. Congrats Brendan! (Jan. 2021)
  • IGOR was accepted to appear at RTAS '21 (Jan. 2021)
  • I am grateful to have been awarded a NASA Exceptional Technology Achievement Medal (Dec. 2020)
  • I am grateful to have been awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (Apr. 2020)

Publications
  • CrossTalk: Making Low-Latency Fault Tolerance Cheap by Exploiting Redundant Networks
    A. Loveless, L. T. X. Phan, L. Erickson, R. Dreslinski, and B. Kasikci
    ACM SIGBED International Conference on Embedded Software (EMSOFT) 2023
    PDF, Slides [acceptance rate: 23.3%]
    Summary: Introduces a new way to reduce the worst-case latency of Byzantine fault-tolerant control systems by forwarding traffic between redundant network planes.
  • CHEX-MIX: Combining Homomorphic Encryption with Trusted Execution Environments for Oblivious Inference in the Cloud
    D. Natarajan, A. Loveless, W. Dai, and R. Dreslinski
    IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy (EuroS&P) 2023
    PDF [acceptance rate: 35%]
    Summary: Describes a new lightweight approach for privacy-ensuring machine learning in the cloud.
  • PCspooF: Compromising the Safety of Time-Triggered Ethernet
    A. Loveless, L. T. X. Phan, R. Dreslinski, and B. Kasikci
    IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (S&P) 2023
    PDF, Slides, Talk [acceptance rate: 14.5%]
    Summary: Describes a new attack that breaks the isolation guarantees of Time-Triggered Ethernet (TTE) by conducting EMI from a malicious device into a TTE switch over an Ethernet cable.
  • RBS: Profile-Guided Scheduling for Time-Triggered Applications
    R. Esswein, B. Luksik, A. Loveless, and A. George
    IEEE Digital Avionics Systems Conference (DASC) 2022
    PDF
    Summary: Describes a principled approach for reducing the bandwidth required to schedule time-triggered network traffic while still reaching a certain reliability target.
  • Gatekeeper: A Reliable Reconfiguration Protocol for Real-Time Ethernet Systems
    B. Luksik, A. Loveless, and A. George
    IEEE Digital Avionics Systems Conference (DASC) 2021
    PDF [Best Student Paper]
    Summary: Describes a novel approach for correctly reconfiguring Time-Triggered Ethernet networks in the presence of faulty devices.
  • IGOR: Accelerating Byzantine Fault Tolerance for Real-Time Systems with Eager Execution
    A. Loveless, R. Dreslinski, B. Kasikci, and L. T. X. Phan
    IEEE Real-Time and Embedded Technology and Applications Symposium (RTAS) 2021
    PDF, Slides, Teaser, Talk [acceptance rate: 27%]
    Summary: Describes a new method for reducing the latency of real-time Byzantine fault-tolerant systems by speculatively executing on data from redundant sensors on different cores.
  • Optimal and Error-Free Multi-Valued Byzantine Consensus Through Parallel Execution
    A. Loveless, R. Dreslinski, and B. Kasikci
    IACR Cryptology ePrint Archive
    PDF
    Summary: Describes the first Byzantine extension protocol that is simultaneously communication-optimal, error-free, and only requires processes to broadcast one bit with a binary Byzantine broadcast protocol.
    (Developed concurrently with and independently of this paper)
  • Development and Testing of a Vehicle Management System for Autonomous Spacecraft Habitat Operations
    G. Aaseng, J. Frank, M. Iatauro, C. Knight, R. Levinson, J. Ossenfort, M. Scott, A. Sweet, J. Csank, J. Soeder, D. Carrejo, A. Loveless, T. Ngo, and Z. Greenwood
    AIAA SPACE Forum and Exposition 2018
    PDF
    Summary: Describes work done collaboratively between NASA centers to design a vehicle management system to autonomously control a future deep space habitat.
  • A Proposed Byzantine Fault-Tolerant Voting Architecture using Time-Triggered Ethernet
    A. Loveless, C. Fidi, and S. Wernitznigg
    SAE AeroTech Congress & Exhibition 2017
    Publisher, Slides
    Summary: Describes how to construct a Byzantine fault-tolerant voting system based on Time-Triggered Ethernet that is suitable for safety-critical applications.
  • A Modular, Scalable Avionics Architecture for Future Exploration Missions
    C. Fidi and A. Loveless
    AIAA SPACE Forum and Exposition 2017
    Publisher
    Summary: Gives a high-level overview of TTTech's Time-Triggered Ethernet products and describes how their features can be used as a part of future spaceflight architectures.
  • Approach for Sizing and Turndown Analysis of a Variable Geometry Spacecraft Radiator
    L. Erickson and A. Loveless
    NESC Thermal and Fluids Analysis Workshop 2017
    PDF, Slides
    Summary: Describes a novel approach for analyzing a variable-geometry spacecraft radiator.
  • On TTEthernet for Integrated Fault-Tolerant Spacecraft Networks
    A. Loveless
    AIAA SPACE Forum and Exposition 2015
    Publisher, PDF, Slides
    Summary: Gives a general overview of how the Time-Triggered Ethernet protocol works and how it is being used in the NASA Advanced Exploration Systems Program.
  • On Augmented DVH Analysis
    A. Loveless, A. Roy, I. Das, and O. Nohadani
    AAPM Annual Meeting & Exhibition 2013
    Publisher
    Summary: Describes a novel method for quantifying the difference between radiation treatment plans that appear visually similar.



Interesting Links
  • List of actual observed failures in safety-critical systems Link
  • Byzantine-resilient ROBUS prototypes at LaRC Link
  • Ascent Abort 2 Lab at JSC (formerly in Building 9) Link Link Link
  • X-38 Crew Return Vehicle prototypes at JSC (formerly in Building 220) Link Link

Copyright © 2021 Andrew Loveless. All rights reserved.