Andrew Loveless


I am a Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan, where I am co-advised by Ron Dreslinski and Baris Kasikci. My interests are in developing techniques to make embedded systems more fault-tolerant and resilient to attacks, as well as to reduce the performance overhead of fault tolerance approaches already used in practice. My work spans multiple areas, including distributed systems, real-time systems. networking, and security.

I am also a civil servant in the Avionic Systems Division at NASA Johnson Space Center, where my focus is on the development of fault-tolerant avionic systems for manned spaceflight applications.

Curriculum Vitae: PDF

BBB Building Room 2317

Announcements
  • I successfully defended my Ph.D. thesis! group photo (Apr. 2023)
  • HEX-ML 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
  • HEX-ML: A Hybrid Cryptographic-Hardware Solution 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, Slides
    Summary: Describes a new lightweight approach for privacy-ensuring machine learning in the cloud setting.
  • 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
    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, Slides, Talk
    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 [Best Student Paper]
    PDF, Slides, Talk
    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
    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.

Select Presentations
  • Impact of Switch Plane Redundancy on Network Availability
    Artemis Network Validation and Integration Laboratory (ANVIL) Education and Training
    NASA JSC, Houston, TX, February 2022
    Slides
  • On Time-Triggered Ethernet in NASA’s Lunar Gateway
    Avionics Architectures Community of Practice Talk
    NASA JSC, Houston, TX, July 2020
    Slides
  • Building Compositional Systems with Time-Triggered Ethernet
    ESA TTE/CFS/IMA Workshop
    European Space Research and Technology Centre, Noordwijk, Netherlands, July 2018
    Slides
  • Using Time-Triggered Ethernet in the Core Flight System
    ESA TTE/CFS/IMA Workshop
    European Space Research and Technology Centre, Noordwijk, Netherlands, July 2018
    Slides
  • Mapping of SOIS Layering Concept to TTE/cFS
    CCSDS Fall Technical Meetings
    The Hague Marriott Hotel, The Hague, Netherlands, Nov. 2017
    Slides
  • TTEthernet Development and CFS Integration
    Deep Space Gateway Open Software Multi-lateral Technical Interchange Meeting
    NASA JSC, Houston, TX, Sept. 2017
    Slides
  • Overview of TTE/CFS Integration
    CCSDS Spring Technical Meetings
    Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, TX, May 2017
    Slides
  • Notional 1FT Voting Architecture with Time-Triggered Ethernet
    Avionics and Software FY17 Planning Meeting
    NASA JSC, Houston, TX, Nov. 2016
    Slides
  • Overview of TTE Applications and Development at NASA/JSC
    CCSDS Fall Technical Meetings
    ASI, Rome, Italy, Oct. 2016
    TTTech, Vienna, Austria, Oct. 2016
    Slides


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.