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Research

Cybersecurity:

No matter how sophisticated and advanced an organization’s security system is, it remains vulnerable due to the human factor. In this paper, we conducted a survey to analyze the patterns used by the faculty, staff, and students when generating passwords at a small-sized university. We found that users are not as aware of security requirements and practices as they think. Moreover, the vast majority of users’ passwords are breakable within a few days or even less. Interestingly, we found that using numbers and uppercase letters is common among users. However, numbers are mostly used at the end of the passwords and uppercase letters are mostly used at the beginning of passwords. The existence of such trends makes it easier for attackers to generate more effective dictionaries. This project aims at analyzing password strength and hence making recommendations to IT personnel and the general public to strengthen the security of their passwords.

Image processing on-board spacecraft:

On-board autonomy is one of the key technologies for future spacecraft development. On-board image processing is an important component of future autonomous spacecraft. The main setback towards the on-board deployment of advanced image-processing algorithms is the high computational power requirements of such algorithms given the on-board computational constraints. The classification of satellite images provide increased on-board spacecraft autonomy which has become a strategic requirement for future space missions. Providing spacecraft with classification capabilities will enable advanced features such as the identification of regions of interest for priority transmission, autonomous mission rescheduling for priority image taking and generating summary products to conserve transmission bandwidth. Although there have been many literature sources on on-board image processing, there is no specific reference discussing the state-of-the-art and future trends of applying this important technology in small satellite missions.

 

Support Vector Machines on-board Small Satellites:

Support Vector Machines (SVM) are considered a relatively recent tool of computational intelligence. However, since their introduction in 1995, Support Vector Machines have found their way to various applications in engineering, economy and statistics. Comparative studies have shown that classification by a SVM can be more accurate than popular contemporary techniques such as neural networks and decision trees as well as conventional probabilistic classifiers such as the maximum likelihood classification. Despite their possible advantages, SVM use in space applications is still very limited, mainly because it is a relatively recent development when compared to its competitors.

The purpose of this project is to investigate the possible applications of SVM in space. This project proposes two specific space-based applications representing the two basic modes of SVM: classification and regression. The first proposed application utilizes SVM in classification mode in order to induce on-board intelligence and autonomy on-board spacecraft by providing spacecraft with the ability to identify high-priority image data such as natural disasters (floods, volcanoes, forest fires, etc.). Previously, this has been done through (pixel-by-pixel) change detection between two images, the new image with a previous image. In this research project we are proposing the use of SVM to classify images without the need of previous history. The project would investigate the feasibility of this approach by using a set of features as inputs to the SVM and analyzing the result of the output of the classification.

The second application proposed in this project is to make use of SVM in regression mode. The project would investigate using Support Vector Regression (SVR) in Fault Detection, Isolation and Recovery (FDIR) on-board. FDIR is critical for on-board autonomy. The SVR approach will be compared to the existing on-board FDIR approaches such as the Built-In Testing (BIT).

Generally speaking, machine learning is computationally demanding, which have always been a set-back for using them in space application. This project plans to overcome the computational demand hurdle through hardware implementations of SVM. In both of the proposed applications above, the computational demand in software will be analyzed. A hardware implementation will be implemented using FPGAs and its performance will be compared to the software implementation.

Publications:

 

Journal Papers

M. Takruri, A. Abubakar, X. Zhao, Noora Al Naqbi, Hessa Al Shehhi, Abdul-Halim M. Jallad and A. Bermak, ” DoFP-ML: A Machine Learning Approach to Food Quality Monitoring Using a DoFP Polarization Image Sensor,” in IEEE Access, vol. 8, pp. 150282 – 150290, 2020.

A. Abubakar, X. Zhao, M. Takruri, E. Bastaki and A. Bermak, “A Hybrid Denoising Algorithm of BM3D and KSVD for Gaussian Noise in DoFP Polarization Images,” in IEEE Access, vol. 8, pp. 57451-57459, 2020.

Jallad, A.-H.; Marpu, P.; Abdul Aziz, Z.; Al Marar, A.; Awad, M. “MeznSat—A 3U CubeSat for Monitoring Greenhouse Gases Using Short Wave Infra-Red Spectrometry: Mission Concept and Analysis”,  Aerospace 2019, 6, 118.

Mohammed Awad, Mohamad Ali and Maen Takruri, “Security vulnerabilities related to web-based data”, TELKOMNIKA,  vol. 17, no. 2,  April 2019.

Abubakar Abubakar, Xiaojin Zhao, Shiting Li, Maen Takruri, Eesa Bastaki and Amine Bermak, “A Block-Matching and 3-D filtering algorithm for Gaussian noise in DoFP polarization images”, IEEE Sensors Journal,  vol. 18, no. 18,  7429-7435,  Sep 2018.

Mohammed Awad, Zakaria Al-Qudah, Sahar Idwan, and Abdul Halim Jallad Password Security: Password Behavior Analysis at a Small University

 

Conference papers

Hamzeh Issa, Prashanth Marpu, Abdul-Halim Jallad, Abdulla Al Marar, “Data processing workflow for the greenhouse gases monitoring CubeSat mission – MeznSat”,  IEEE M2GARSS, March 8-11, 2020

Abubakar Abubakar, Xiaojin Zhao, Maen Takruri, Eesa Bastaki and Amine Bermak, “A Hybrid Denoising Algorithm for DoFP Polarization Image Sensors  ”, Proceedings of the 2019 International Conference on Electrical and Computing Technologies and Applications (ICECTA), Nov, 2019.

Abubakar Abubakar, Maen Takruri, Noora Al Naqbi, Hessa Al Shehhi, Wafaa Ba Hutair and Amine Bermak, “Performance Evaluation of Gaussian Noise Denoising Algorithms for DoFP Polarization Image Sensors”, Proceedings of the 2019 International Conference on Electrical and Computing Technologies and Applications (ICECTA), Nov, 2019.

Abubakar Abubakar, Xiaojin Zhao, Maen Takruri, Eesa Bastaki and Amine Bermak, “BM3D Filtering Algorithm for DoFP Polarization Image Sensors”, Proceedings of the 2018 IEEE 23rd International Conference on Digital Signal Processing (DSP), Nov 2018.

Jallad, Abdul-Halim; Aziz, Zulkifli; Allam, Aisha; Marpu, Prashanth; Tsoupos, Alexandros; Marar, Abdulla, “MeznSat: A CubeSat for Greenhouse Gases Monitoring and Algal Blooms prediction”, in Proceedings of the Annual Small Satellite Conference 2018, Aug 2018, Utah, USA.

Fatema Al-Hameli, Abdul Halim Jallad,  Prashanth Reddy Marpu, Saif Al Mheiri,  Abdulla Al Marar and Omar Al Emam,  “MeznSat: A New CubeSat for Monitoring Greenhouse Gases”, 15th Annual CubeSat Developers Workshop, April 2018, CA, USA.

Abdul Halim Jallad, Prashanth Reddy Marpu, Saif Al Mheiri, Abdulla Al Marar and Omar Al Emam, “A New CubeSat for Monitoring Greenhouse Gases”, 9th European CubeSat Symposium, Nov 2017, Ostend, Belgium.

Maen Takruri and Abubakar Abubakar , “Bayesian decision fusion for enhancing melanoma recognition accuracy,” Proceedings of the 2017 International Conference on Electrical and Computing Technologies and Applications (ICECTA), Nov, 2017.

Mohammed Awad, Zakaria Al-Qudah, Sahar Idwan, and Abdul Halim Jallad Password Security: Password Behavior Analysis at a Small University

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