From Connectivity to Cognition: Building Intelligent and Secure Autonomous Systems Across Digital and Physical Domains

Abstract:  

Modern infrastructure, from 6G networks and electric vehicle ecosystems to global agricultural supply chains, is becoming increasingly autonomous and interconnected. This talk presents a unified research agenda for enabling resilient and secure operation in these complex domains by integrating networking, optimization, machine learning, and system-level intelligence. I begin with foundational work on robust management and orchestration of virtualized networks, ensuring that the backbone of our connectivity remains resilient under uncertainty. I then discuss how these principles scale to physical infrastructures, highlighting recent work in agricultural security and early threat detection. Building on this, I explore cybersecurity for cyber-physical systems, with a focus on threat hunting and intrusion detection in electric vehicle ecosystems. I conclude by outlining a future vision for intent-based networking using Large Language Models to translate human intent into truly self-managing, trustworthy autonomous systems.

Bio:

Dr. Dimitrios Michael Manias is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Mississippi State University. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Western Ontario in 2023 and is a recipient of the Governor General of Canada Academic Gold Medal. He is the Director of the Adaptive and Emerging Gnosis for Intelligent Systems and Networks (AEGIS-N) Lab and serves as an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management. His current research interests include next-generation networks and systems, network security and reliability, network management and orchestration, machine learning and artificial intelligence, operations research, and quantum-enhanced networks.