UTA researcher earns NSF CAREER award for AV security
Grant supports development of cybersecurity methods to protect autonomous vehicles from multi-layered attacks
image: Headshot of Habeeb Olufowobi
Credit: The University of Texas at Arlington
Habeeb Olufowobi, an assistant professor of computer science and engineering at The University of Texas at Arlington, has received a Faculty Early Career Development Program award from the National Science Foundation to advance his research and education initiatives.
The grant, known as CAREER, is the National Science Foundation’s most prestigious honor for early career faculty. Recipients are recognized as outstanding researchers and educators who are poised to become leaders in integrating research and education within their institutions.
The nearly $600,000 grant will support Olufowobi’s work to develop methods to protect high-level software and low-level hardware of connected autonomous vehicles (AVs) from cyber-physical attacks and misuse by hackers.
Traditionally, efforts to secure AVs have emphasized mechanical control systems—such as brakes and steering—and their communication networks, like the CAN bus. But as AVs become increasingly autonomous, they depend more on complex software integrated with hardware, broadening the attack surface and exposing systems to more sophisticated threats.
Olufowobi will design multilevel attacks to study how threats exploit the interactions between high-level autonomy functions—such as perception systems and AI/ML algorithms—and low-level functions like in-vehicle networks. His research will model how coordinated attacks spread across these interconnected layers via cyber-physical state information exchanges. He will also develop integrated dependability and security solutions to help vehicles detect, withstand and recover from such attacks.
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“High-level components like cameras and sensors now direct low-level operations, such as control and actuation,” Olufowobi said. “So, if the high-level systems are compromised, low-level functions can be subverted as well. My research examines the interconnectedness between these layers to understand how attacks can propagate across the vehicle stack. Our goal is to integrate security holistically throughout cyber-physical systems of AVs to prevent attacks from cascading between autonomy functions and in-vehicle networks.”
Olufowobi joined UTA in 2020. His research focuses on ensuring the security and trustworthiness of embedded and distributed systems.
“We are extremely proud of Dr. Olufowobi’s achievement,” said Hong Jiang, chair of the Computer Science and Engineering Department. “His CAREER award reflects not only his innovative contributions to cybersecurity and autonomous vehicles, but also the growing research excellence within our department. This is a well-deserved recognition, and we look forward to the continued impact of his work.”