CESSAIR SAFE & SECURE AI ROBOTICS
AI robots are growing ever more capable and complex. The Center for Safe & Secure AI Robotics makes sure they remain safe and secure.
Autonomous robots and artificial intelligence are changing the world, from the inside of biological systems to the outskirts of the Solar System. Malicious actors can exploit the physical components, algorithms and data that make up AI robots, and these systems can display unexpected emergent behavior. CESSAIR was established in 2024 with a SUNY Poly Center Seed Grant to meet this challenge, and its researchers now support U.S. Department of Defense research for the U.S. Army's Transformation Decision Analysis Center (TDAC).
Vision: To advance AI robotics for the short- and long-term prosperity of humanity, with safety and security as the primary design constraint.
Mission: To find AI robotic-powered solutions for scientific advancement, critical infrastructure, molecular engineering and medicine, strengthening national defense and recovery capabilities along the way. We serve the industrial, information, military and first-response sectors of the Mohawk Valley and New York State by training a specialized workforce and moving research from academia into real-world applications.
U.S. Department of Defense Research
Funding partner: U.S. Army Transformation Decision Analysis Center (TDAC) , part of the U.S. Army Futures and Concepts Command (FCC) , U.S. Department of Defense
CESSAIR researchers are part of SUNY Poly's $60.9 million U.S. Department of Defense contract supporting TDAC, carried out with the University of South Florida and the University System of Maryland. The work develops generative AI, foundation models and advanced inference tools that help the Army synchronize operations across land, air, space and cyberspace. CESSAIR faculty Andrea Dziubek and Amit Sangwan serve as co-principal investigators, and Director Emilio Cobanera is a contributor, as is faculty member Amir Manzourolajdad on Dziubek's project.
Research Capabilities
Advanced Modeling
Structure-preserving numerical methods, multi-physics simulations, AI-accelerated digital twins, and verification, validation and uncertainty quantification (VVUQ). Current targets are advanced manufacturing and extreme environments, including a project on numerical topology for robot path planning.
AI Safety and Security
Cyber resilience of generative AI models, with pre- and post-deployment security measures.
Cyber-Physical Systems
Control engineering with machine learning; machine cognition and reasoning; and distributed control and intelligence, including swarm robotics algorithms and simulation, with proofs of principle on low-cost robots built in-house. Case studies include a physics-informed transformer with distributionally robust chance constraint loss (PIT-DRCC) and spatial reasoning with large language models for combat simulations.
Quantum Modeling and Simulation
Quantum materials, superconducting devices, open quantum systems (transport, noise and control), and quantum information processing.
Bio-Inspired Engineering
Computer simulations of insect cognition with spiking neural networks (SNNs), and neuromorphic computing for modeling social insect behavior.
People
Director: Emilio Cobanera, Department of Physics; AI safety and security, quantum materials and technologies; contributor, U.S. Army TDAC research
Emilio Cobanera is an associate professor of physics at SUNY Poly and has been a visiting professor at Dartmouth College since 2018. He received his PhD in physics from Indiana University, where his work on duality transformations in many-body physics earned the Esther L. Kingsley Dissertation Award, the university's highest recognition for doctoral research. He has published about 40 peer-reviewed papers on topological quantum matter and topological quantum computation, cited more than 1,900 times, and is a co-discoverer of the theory of the space-localized Majorana boson. His current research applies advanced statistical mechanics to generative AI and its implications for autonomous robotics. His publications are listed on Google Scholar.
Faculty
- Andrea Dziubek, Department of Mathematics; advanced simulation methods and digital twins; co-principal investigator, U.S. Army TDAC research; Google Scholar
- Amit Sangwan, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering; spatial reasoning with large language models and human-machine integration; co-principal investigator, U.S. Army TDAC research; Google Scholar
- Amir Manzourolajdad, Department of Computer Science; graph neural networks, digital twins and RNA research; contributor, U.S. Army TDAC research (Dziubek project); Google Scholar
- Margarita Orlova, Department of Biology and Chemistry; chemical signaling, behavioral ecology, social insects and bio-inspired engineering; Google Scholar
- William Durgin, Department of Civil and Mechanical Engineering; fluid mechanics, aerodynamics and robot power systems; Google Scholar
- Robert Payne, Department of Engineering Technology; robotics education and student robotics; co-founder of CNY Drones, which brought U.S. Drone Soccer competitions to SUNY Poly, including the first U.S. Drone Soccer National Championship in 2023
CESSAIR Postdoctoral Fellow
- Shiming Fang, control engineering; adviser: Emilio Cobanera
Postdoctoral Researchers
- Abdelmoula El-Yazizi, machine learning; adviser: Amit Sangwan
- Kshitija Taywade, reinforcement learning; advisers: Mahmoud Badr and Emilio Cobanera
- Gabriel Pinochet-Soto, numerical analysis; adviser: Andrea Dziubek
Research Associates
- FNU Vishakha, Department of Mathematics; probability theory and mathematical foundations of AI; arXiv papers
Emeritus Faculty
- Bruno Andriamanalimanana, causal inference and AI systems engineering
Past members: Gunyaz Ablay, Chen-Fu Chiang, Steven Schneider, Priyangshu Sen, Jiayue Shen, Arjun Singh and Yu Zhou.
Training and Outreach
CESSAIR trains the next generation of researchers in safe and secure AI robotics. In 2026 the center welcomed four postdoctoral researchers, including CESSAIR Postdoctoral Fellow Shiming Fang, bringing new expertise in machine learning, control engineering, reinforcement learning and numerical analysis.
Beyond True and False: Agentic AI as Creative Agents
Upcoming workshop, late spring 2027. Organized by Director Emilio Cobanera.
AI agents that plan, use tools and act with growing autonomy are rapidly entering scientific research and creative practice. Most current work aims to make these agents as logical and predictable as possible, treating hallucination purely as a defect to be suppressed so that agents behave like traditional computers. This workshop opens a complementary research direction. It begins with technical talks on the architecture of agentic AI: how AI agents are built, how they reason and act, and what makes them work. Building on these foundations, it asks how AI agents can be characterized, studied and safely harnessed as creative agents, capable of generating genuinely new ideas, hypotheses and works, from scientific discovery to the arts.
Robotics and Advanced Manufacturing Workshop: Advances in Interactive Robotics and Manufacturing
Held November 23, 2024. Organized by Emilio Cobanera and Tabiri Asumadu.
A joint event of CESSAIR and SUNY Poly's Global Center for Advanced Materials and Manufacturing (GCAMM) . Opened by SUNY Poly President Winston Soboyejo, the day brought together speakers from the Air Force Research Laboratory, VRC Metal Systems, the University at Albany and Binghamton University. It included a round table on robotics in Central New York's growing semiconductor industry, a poster session, public robotics demonstrations, and a public lecture by Director Emilio Cobanera on the future of machine intelligence.
Collaborators and Partners
International Partnership: Australia
- Giuseppe Tettamanzi, Director of the Jesper Munch Quantum Laboratories, Adelaide University
- Paulo Santos, Head of Research and Development, Priori Analytica (Adelaide and Austin), AI predictive solutions
International Partnership: New Zealand
- Nicholas Lambert, Department of Physics, University of Otago, quantum technologies
International Partnership: Brazil
- André Vilela, University of Pernambuco, statistical physics and complex networks
Academic Collaborators
- Ankur Mali, University of South Florida, Director of the TKAI Lab
- Gerardo Ortiz, Indiana University Bloomington, quantum materials and quantum information science
- Andrew Russell, SUNY Poly, history of technology
- Lorenza Viola, Dartmouth College, quantum information science and quantum engineering
- Kaiyan Yu, Binghamton University, mechanical engineering
Industry and Community Partners
- Technergetics, Utica, New York (defense technology)
- BQP, Syracuse, New York (quantum-classical computing)
- FDNY Robotics Unit (first response)
- Masonic Medical Research Institute (biomedical research)
SUNY Poly Research Centers
- AI Exploration Center (AIX), co-directed by Steven Schneider and William Thistleton
- Center for Cybersecurity Research and Innovation (CCRI) , directed by Mahmoud Badr
- Center for Design, Interdisciplinary Research, Electronic Technology, Art and Media (DREAM) , co-directed by Ana Jofre and Babak Elahi
CESSAIR is a research center of SUNY Polytechnic Institute in Utica, New York. Its funding partners include the State of New York through a SUNY Poly Center Seed Grant and the U.S. Army Transformation Decision Analysis Center (TDAC) of the Futures and Concepts Command , U.S. Department of Defense.
Contact CESSAIR
Emilio Cobanera, Director
cobanee@sunypoly.edu
