Cloud computing has emerged as a new computing paradigm with enormous benefits that have attracted many businesses and service providers. As a result, it is critical to ensure highly available and resilient cloud system that continues to operate correctly under different circumstances. This is endangered by risks of cloud insider attacks. In this work, we propose an artificial intelligence based system to detect cloud insider attacks. A hierarchical detection system is used to ensure high detection accuracy and speed. In the first layer, we use a simple expert system to classify the insider as a normal, an attacker, or a probable attacker. The system reacts accordingly by allowing normal insiders to continue their work, blocking attackers, and performing further investigation on probable attackers in the second layer using a decision tree. Simulation results show that our system is able to detect insider attacks with 99.67% detection accuracy.

Broadcasting in MANETs is a fundamental data dissemination mechanism, with important applications, e.g., route query process in many routing protocols, address resolution and diffusing information to the whole network. Broadcasting in MANETs has traditionally been based on flooding, which overwhelm the network with large number of rebroadcast packets. Fixed counter-based flooding has been one of the earliest suggested approaches to overcome blind-flooding or the ldquobroadcast storm problemrdquo. As the topological characteristics of mobile networks varies instantly, the need of an adapted counter-based broadcast emerge. This research argues that neighbouring information could be used to better estimate the counter-based threshold value at a given node. Additionally results of extensive simulation experiments performed in order to determine the minimum and maximum number of neighbours for a given node is shown. This is done based on locally available information and without requiring any assistance of distance measurements or exact location determination devices.

Data security in wireless sensor networks is very important, especially in hostile environment, where we must ensure that data is authentic, confidential, and not tampered on the road. Network authenticity and confidentiality need the existence of shared keys. These keys are highly recommended to be in small scopes so that the compromise of one node will not affect the whole network. Key management is critical to maintain the security functions. In this paper we introduce a new key management algorithm, which ensures that most of the node's neighbors are reliable. The proposed algorithm minimizes interaction with base station, number of transmitted packets, and energy consumption. In addition, it does not use large scope keys. Simulation results proof that the proposed algorithm is scalable in terms of storage and communication overhead, such that there is no correlation between the number of nodes in the network from one side and number of reliable neighbors and number of packets transmitted from the other side.

A new approach for designing controllers for nonlinear systems in general and for robot manipulators in particular is proposed. The proposed approach is based on fitting a set of gains to continuous functions of the states of the system using Taylor series expansion. The gains are obtained using LQR design on a fine set of linearized versions of the system. This scheme is systematic and can be utilized in any nonlinear autonomous system. Unlike the approaches based on the conventional gain scheduling, our approach imposes no limitation on the speed of variation in the system. Consequently, the stability of the proposed system is better than that of the classical gain scheduling. Simulation results prove the effectiveness of the proposed approach and the robustness of the controller in the presence of significant actuators' noise.

The role of a compliant motion scheme is to control a robot manipulator in contact with its environment. By accommodating with the interaction force, the manipulator can be used to accomplish tasks that involve constrained motions. This paper presents a new work on the compliant motion control for position-controlled manipulator. A new method for achieving efficient interaction between the manipulator and its environment is developed. The interaction force is reduced using a quadratic cost function. In this method, the compliance is formulated as function of the interaction force. An adaptive element is used to update the compliance. The stability of the system is investigated using the Lyapunov approach. Experiments are conducted in our laboratory to demonstrate the use of such scheme.

Coordination of a human arm and a manipulator to share a load is a new problem. In this paper, we propose a variable compliance control as a coordination mechanism for the arm and the manipulator. The compliance will be updated according to the force exerted by the manipulator. This coordination mechanism is proposed to accommodate with the uncertainties associated with the impedance of the human arm and the weight of the object. Furthermore, the stability of the system and the manipulation speed will be improved. The stability problem is studied using the small gain theorem. Experiments were conducted in our laboratory to prove the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.

Arm-manipulator coordination is a new and attractive use of robotic manipulators in unstructured environments. In this paper, we propose a reflexive motion control as a coordination mechanism for the manipulator to share the load with the arm. Reflexive motion is an inspiration of biological systems. The motion is formulated in a manner which assists the manipulator to comprehend the intention of the human arm. It reduces the strain on the arm which is due to the weight of the object. In addition, the speed of manipulation on the object is improved significantly. The effects of the reflexive behavior on stability and load sharing of the system are investigated. Experimental results are presented to prove the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.

Arm-manipulator coordination is a new coordination problem in robotics. Human arm-manipulator coordination is superior to both arm-arm coordination and manipulator-manipulator coordination. Likewise, it is expected to have powerful impacts on many applications in the manufacturing, service, and construction industries. This paper introduces this problem and investigates the coordination using a compliant control method. There are several problems in this scheme. First, the stability problem is studied using the Routh-Hurwitz criterion. Then, a very important aspect of the arm-manipulator coordination problem, load sharing, is investigated. Experimental analysis proves the effectiveness of the proposed schemes.

This paper presents a new work on compliant motion control for position-controlled manipulators. Two new methods for achieving efficient interaction between the manipulator and its environment are developed. In both methods, the compliance is formulated as a function of the interaction force. The first method uses an adaptive element to update the compliance, while the second one adopts a scheme that is believed to be used in human beings to control the stiffness of muscles. The stability of the system is investigated using the small gain theorem. Experiments are conducted in our lab to demonstrate the use of such schemes.

Coordinating two robot manipulators to handle flexible materials has a wide range of applications in the manufacturing industry. However, this problem has not been seriously addressed until recently. The two robot manipulators have to follow complicated trajectories to maintain a minimum interaction force with the flexible beam. These trajectories are very complicated and not suitable for real time systems. In this paper, three approximation methods of the optimal trajectories are introduced. The first one uses a piecewise linear approximation of the optimal trajectories, while the second one uses adaptive piecewise linear approximation. The third method utilizes the behavior of the optimal trajectories and applies a continuous approximation of the optimal trajectories using an ellipsoid. The interaction moment under these approximations is investigated. The authors found that the first method produces a peak in the interaction moment which can damage the object. The second method controls the peaks in the moment to a prescribed limit. In the third method, the moment is very small and the force is very close to the optimal force.

Coordinating two robot manipulators to handle flexible materials has a wide range of applications in the manufacturing industry. However, this problem has not been seriously addressed until recently. The two robot manipulators have to follow complicated trajectories to maintain a minimum interaction force with the flexible beam. These trajectories are very complicated and not suitable for real time systems. A compliant motion scheme is proposed to reduce the interaction forces and moments. The stability of the proposed system is investigated. Experimental results encourage the proposed scheme.

Coordinating two robot manipulators to handle flexible materials has a wide range of applications in the manufacturing industry. However, this problem has not been seriously addressed until recently. The two robot manipulators have to follow complicated trajectories to maintain a minimum interaction force with the flexible beam. These trajectories are very complicated and not suitable for real time systems. In this paper, three approximation methods of the optimal trajectories are introduced. The first one uses a piece-wise linear approximation of the optimal trajectories, while the second one uses adaptive piece-wise linear approximation. The third method utilizes the behavior of the optimal trajectories and applies a continuous approximation of the optimal trajectories using an ellipsoid. The interaction force under these approximations is investigated. The authors found that the first method produces a peak in the interaction force which can damage the object. The second method controls the peaks in the force to a prescribed limit. In the third method, the force is very close to the optimal force. Experimentation was used to verify the approximation methods.>