Research Awards and Grants

Cyber Security Engineering faculty members, recognized as the best in their fields, conduct valuable research. Their funding sources include a variety of federal agencies, as well as grants from business and industry.

George Mason University receives a grant from the NTIA Public Wireless Supply Chain Innovation Fund

Assistant Professor Vijay Shah and ECE Professor Kai Zeng received a grant for their project on AI-assisted efficient testing methods for 5G radio access networks. This project focuses on the research and development of AI-assisted methods for the testing of O-RAN's radio units (RU), distributed units (DU), and central units (CU) in terms of their interoperability, performance, and security. Specifically, it aims to design an AI-based testing software framework that can facilitate and automate the 5G O-RAN testing process.

Md Tanvir Arafin, Assistant Professor of Cybersecurity Engineering, received funding for the project: "Securing Chiplet-based Semiconductor Manufacturing from Untrusted Supply Chains." In this project, Arafin and his group will design provable trust embedding techniques for counterfeit chiplet detection.  

Arafin received $50,000 from the Virginia Innovation Partnership Authority for this research. Funding began in Jan. 2024 and will end in Jan. 2025.

Vijay K. Shah received funding from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) Wireless Innovation Fund on O-RAN Testing R&D award to build a comprehensive cybersecurity testing framework for 5G Radio Access Networks.

Anticipated funding: $480K

More info: https://www.nextgwirelesslab.org/o-ran-cybersecurity-testing

Vijay K. Shah and Kai Zeng received funding from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) Wireless Innovation Fund. The project aims to formulate AI-assisted testing methods for 5G O-RAN components (i.e., RU, DU, and CU) and design an AI-based testing software framework to automate broader 5G Open RAN testing.

Anticipated funding: $700K

More info: https://www.nextgwirelesslab.org/o-ran-testing

Vijay K. Shah received funding from the Virginia Innovation Partnership Authority for Fingerprinting Technology for Enhancing 5G/NextG O-RAN Supply Chain Risk.

Anticipated funding: $49,993

More info: https://www.nextgwirelesslab.org/fingerprinting-for-o-ran-supply-chain

Vijay K. Shah, Kai Zeng, and Parth Pathak received funding from the National Science Foundation to secure mmWave communications with reconfigurable intelligence surfaces.

Anticipated funding: $800K

More info: https://www.nextgwirelesslab.org/securis

Vijay K. Shah received funding from the National Science Foundation for Collaborative Research: Research Infrastructure: CCRI: New: Distributed Space and Terrestrial Networking Infrastructure for Multi-Constellation Coexistence.

 Anticipated funding:  $299,989

More info: https://www.nextgwirelesslab.org/space-network

Vijay K. Shah and Parth Pathak received funding from the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative for Open-Milli-IoT: An Open Programmable Platform for mmWave Wireless Internet of Things.

Anticipated funding: $50K

Md Tanvir Arafin, Assistant Professor of Cybersecurity Engineering, received funding for the project: "Collaborative Research: CISE-MSI: DP: CNS: An Edge-Based Approach to Robust Multi-Robot Systems in Dynamic Environments." Arafin and his group will work on integrating modern cryptographic and security primitives to secure collaboration among edge nodes in multi-robot systems.  

Arafin received $95,000 from the National Science Foundation. Funding began in Aug. 2022 and will end in Jul. 2025.

Duminda  Wijesekera Brian Mark, Parth Pathak, Vijay Shah, Kai Zeng received funding from NSF for IUCRC for Planning Grant George Mason University: Center for Wireless Innovation Towards Secure, Pervasive, Efficient and Resilient Next G Networks (WISPER).

Award amount: $20,000

Vijay K Shah received funding from US Department of the Army for “5G Technology Platform for Military Base with a Resilient, Green, And Secure Electric Grid (5G-BASE).”

Award amount: $10,000

Vijay Shah received funding from the National Science Foundation for Collaborative Research: SWIFT: Context-Aware Spectrum Coexistence dEsign aNd implemenTation in Satellite Bands (ASCENT) National Science Foundation (NSF).

Grant total: $184,500

More info: https://www.nextgwirelesslab.org/spectrum-sharing-in-satellite-bands

Vijay Shah received funding from the National Science Foundation for "Collaborative research: CCRI: New: Open AI Cellular (OAIC): Prototyping Artificial Intelligence Enabled Control and Testing Systems for Cellular Communications Research."

Grant total: $295,018

Project Link: https://www.nextgwirelesslab.org/open-ai-cellular-oaic

Vijay K. Shah received funding from the NIST under Public Safety Innovation Accelerator Program (PSIAP) to design, prototype and demonstrate a highly precise 5G-based Indoor Positioning System (5G-IPS) that addresses three long-standing and difficult challenges in emergency environments (i) global navigation satellite system (GNSS) and traditional global positioning system (GPS) do not work reliably in indoor setting, (ii) reliable communication infrastructure may not always be available, and (ii) accurate mapping and visualization of the building map may not be available.

Grant total: $1.2M

Project link: https://www.nextgwirelesslab.org/5g-based-indoor-positioning-system-5g-ips