Research Collaboration

Lead Company - Seamless and Secure Connectivity Program

Funding organization: Business Finland

Seamless and Secure Connectivity program aims at enabling trustworthy, secure, and resilient end-to-end connectivity architectures and products including life-cycle services in various domains. Business Finland has granted the program EUR 10 million development funding and, in addition, EUR 20 million funding for the ecosystem companies and research partners. The four-year program led by Bittium will last until 2026. Achieving the goal requires the information-secure cooperation of various public and private networks, including applications and terminals and other devices, combined into a cooperative embedded solution of different technologies.

PhotonWear (Wearable Technologies for Photonic Sensors)

Demographic change and the need for cost-effective solutions for health and elderly care is one of the biggest global challenges. Wearable sensors are fundamental to monitoring of health and wellness for their inherent advantages: non-invasive measurements, continuous data collection and wireless connectivity. PHOTONWEAR will rely on novel optical sensing methods for physiological parameters, advanced data analytics, and manufacturing and integration methods for conformable electronics. Project will focus on optical non-invasive measurement of different physiological parameters and biomarkers, using ultra-comfortable sensors for healthcare and wellness applications, such as patient monitoring, apnea detection, heart health and metabolic monitoring. PHOTONWEAR aims are:

Digital twin of the human – optical model of human tissue by simulation toolset and with the help of using realistic physical models of human skin and body parts
High-accuracy optical measurements – research tools and methodologies for medical quality optical measurements by a robust multispectral system capable for acquiring data with easily reconfigurable settings.
Demonstrators validated with a volunteer group – ultra-comfortable, flexible/stretchable skin patch optical sensor providing medical quality performance for heart rate and blood oxygenation measurements, including photodiode technology with 20% higher sensitivity than with state-of-the-art technologies and also capability to measure non-invasive blood pressure.
Novel optical measurement of lactate and glucose levels – radical and innovative idea for proof-of-concept non-invasive measurement of lactate and glucose levels directly from human tissue.

PHOTONWEAR is composed of industrial leaders in Finland in both healthcare and in wellness, as well as in novel photonics technologies. Academic partners will help in bringing novel, beyond state-of-the-art technologies and innovations into use of Finnish wearable technologies ecosystem.

PHOTONWEAR aims to combine international networking with close national collaboration in order to develop new wearable technologies for photonic analyzers as well as value chains that lead to new scientific know-how, significant industrial business and new jobs in Finland.

PHOTONWEAR project partners are GE Healthcare, OURA, Elfys, University of Oulu and VTT (coordinator).

Contact for the PHOTONWEAR project is [email protected].

CISSAN (Collective intelligence supported by security aware nodes)

CISSAN builds methods and technology for integrating collective security intelligence to IoT networks. CISSAN-powered networks will be able to collaboratively identify tampered and adversarial devices, detect malicious activities, and select effective countermeasures. Higher IoT network resilience with be accompanied by resource efficiency through intelligent distribution of security functionalities across network nodes. CISSAN is EU CELTIC-NEXT project (https://www.celticnext.eu/project-cissan/). In Finland CISSAN belongs to Bittium´s Seamless and Secure Connectivity program funded by Business Finland.

Main focus

The proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) has fundamentally changed how different environments, such as homes, offices, factories, smart buildings, and smart grids, are used and operated. However, security is a major concern for IoT networks and environments, where the risks of physical device tempering, injection of malicious devices, and unpatched vulnerabilities are higher than in traditional networks. CISSAN proposes and implements algorithms for mitigating IoT security threats through collective decision-making and with a reduced impact on the limited resources of IoT devices. These algorithms will be based on research and innovation in optimizing the distribution of security capabilities and aggregating the intelligence in IoT network nodes. Three industrial use cases, which nowadays heavily rely on the use of IoT, will inform the project developments and will be used for validating and demonstrating the project results: (i) public transportation; (ii) smart energy grids; (iii) mining and tunneling operations.

Approach

CISSAN will research and implement algorithms for distributed security monitoring, attack detection and response in IoT networks. Such algorithms will combine machine learning-based methods, more traditional AI techniques (e.g., decision-making based on formal knowledge representation and expert systems, fuzzy logic-based approaches, or genetic algorithms), and attack-specific rules. Since increasing the level of autonomy in IoT network defence is one of the high goals of the project, we will propose mechanisms for collective decision-making by CISSAN “security agents”, which are essentially security functions placed to IoT network nodes. Blockchain-based consensus protocols are one possible type of such mechanisms to be considered in the project. To enable communication between the security agents, CISSAN will implement a light overlay networking solution. Also, methods and tools will be developed for verifying the quality of data sets used in the project for building machine learning models and supporting other data-driven technologies.

IoT devices are usually resource-constrained, and instrumenting each of them with the full set of security functions required for detecting and countering cyberattacks may not be an optimal strategy. Instead, we will propose network context-aware algorithms for distributing the security functions among the IoT devices, edge devices, and possibly cloud backends to achieve a suitable balance between the network resilience and the resource utilization.

The technical efforts in CISSAN will be accompanied by defining and investigating potential business models around the project results and their business impact analysis. Regulatory and compliance considerations will be taken into account, including the ENISA’s work on certification schemes.

Partners

AddSecure Smart Grids (SE), Affärsverken Karlskrona (SE), Arctoslabs AB (SE), Blekinge Tekniska Högskolan (SE), Blue Science Park (SE), Cibernos (ES), Clavister AB (SE), Councilbox (ES), Geodata Ziviltechnikergesellschaft mbH (AT), Mattersoft Ltd. (FI), Mint Security Ltd. (FI), Netox (FI), Nodeon Finland Oy (FI), Savantic (SE), ScopeSensor Ltd. (FI), Techinova AB (SE), University of Jyväskylä (FI), Wirepas Oy (FI)

AHMED (Agile and Holistic MEdical software Development)

Funding organization: Business Finland

AHMED: Agile and Holistic MEdical software Development Co-Innovation is a research project to create continuous approach to regulatory requirements:

Construct concrete case studies inside companies, directly associated with company needs
Identify best recognized patterns and practices in agile medical device development following continuous software practices
Understand the regulatory basis for required process practises and therefore tool capabilities
Test different tool chains that can provide support for traceability, risk management, etc.
Build a joint demonstrator between participants: participants free to build their own research
prototypes towards client demos, reusable component, etc.
Cover both data centric features needed for AI&ML as well as software functions, including testing as well as potential applications for further demonstration and productization which are attractive for global market
Making impact to European regulation by providing input to regulators and their working groups

The two year project is coordinated by VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and participated by Helsinki University as well as six companies:

Atostek Oy
Bittium Oyj
Mylab Oy
Solita Oy
Taipuva Consulting Oy
Terveystalo Oyj

AHMED is partly funded by Business Finland and it is a part of Business Finland’s Smart Life program.

Read more: https://www.regops.fi/

ESSOR - European Secure Software Defined Radio

The aim of the ESSOR programme, currently sponsored by the governments of Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, and Spain, is to develop pan-European Software Defined Radio (SDR) technology in order to improve the ability of Armed Forces to cooperate in joint operations and also to develop new ESSOR waveforms (E3DWF, ENBWF, ESATWF), in the frame of ESSOR ENC (ESSOR New capabilities) project.

The ESSOR programme will continue, with further activities including the porting of the ESSOR HDRWF to Rohde & Schwarz's SDR and a new interoperability verification test session. In addition to the European High Data Rate (HDR) waveform, the programme has produced and validated a European SDR architecture, now qualified on six different European platforms. The benefits of waveform interoperability are regularly demonstrated through network testing involving different ESSOR national platforms.

iMUGS (integrated Modular Unmanned Ground System)

Funding organization: European Defence Industrial Development Programme (EDIDP)

Bittium is part of the iMUGS (integrated Modular Unmanned Ground System) project that is operating under the European Defence Industrial Development Programme (EDIDP). The iMUGS project is developing new capabilities for European defence forces based on autonomous systems.

Goal of the project is to develop a modular and scalable architecture for hybrid manned-unmanned systems in order to address a large range of missions and to enable easy update or modification of assets and functionalities within the system: aerial and ground platforms, command, control and communication equipment, sensors, payloads and algorithms. The project will also develop a prototype for demonstrating the features of the implementation.

In the project, Bittium is responsible for the execution of resilient and networked data transfer, including both tactical communications and data transfer over commercial 4G and 5G cellular networks. The iMUGS project begun in 2021 and the duration of the project is approximately 30 months. The participating countries in the project are Belgium, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Latvia and Spain.

iDUNN (A Cognitive Detection System for Cybersecure Operational Technologies)

Funding organization: EU Horizon H2020

IDUNN – A COGNITIVE DETECTION SYSTEM FOR CYBERSECURE OPERATIONAL TECHNOLOGIES is a European project funded by the European Commission.

IDUNN is focusing on adding the trust ingredient to any business by making its ICT systems resilience to cyber-attacks. It will create a security shield in the form of tools, methodologies, microservices and initial standards compatible with any ICT supply chain. The project will demonstrate a secure Continuity Plan for ICT based organisations by creating and validating a unique Cognitive Detection System for Cybersecure Operational Technologies.

Stroke-Data

Funding organization: Business Finland

Cost savings and better patient care through co-creation of novel data-intensive innovations for stroke prevention and diagnostics.

Expected results:

Patient-facing solution to support stroke patient from hospital to rehabilitation and back home
Professional-facing solution to support expert team decision making in from emergency care to hospital, rehabilitation and back home
Feasibility tests for the co-created solutions
Prediction model to show the solution impact
Business model alternatives that help companies and hospitals to take the Stroke-Data solutions to the selected Nordic, Asian, US and Australian markets

Post-Quantum Cryptopgraphy (PQC)

Funding organization: Business Finland

Bittium is part of a nationally significant Post Quantum Cryptography (PQC) project, funded by the Business Finland Digital Trust program. PQC project develops quantum secure encryption technology, integrating it as part of products and solutions. The goal of the project is to accelerate the increase of innovations based on digital trust and a growth of business. In this project, Bittium leverages the expertise in quantum secure key exchange and authentication, providing even stronger capability to protect customer information.

As a result of this project collaboration, a functionality has been implemented for Post Quantum Cryptography based key exchange and certificate-based authentication.

The project has altogether nine partners from academia (3) and industry (6) with three stakeholder partners from government organisations.

TIoCPS

Funding organization: Business Finland / ITEA3

The motivation for TIoCPS project arises from the grand challenge facing cyber-physical systems (CPS): the lack of trustworthy, smart and interoperable information/data sharing and value exchange prevents the establishment of the data economy around CPS. The objective of the project is to technically enable trustworthy and smart communities for CPS systems (TIoCPS concept) for solving the grand challenge in the context of selected industrial use cases dealing with energy, mobility and user/owner CPS systems. The TIoCPS concept combined with the use case solutions are envisioned to boost the business of the respective industries and enable more trustworthy, smart, interoperable and sustainable industrial CPS ecosystem and society.

Bittium’s TioCPS project is part of ITEA TIoCPS collaboration coordinated in Finland by VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland.

The project objective is to develop strategic technology assets and knowhow that enables creating new major business in the field of trushworthiness in cyber physical systems.

Bittium works in the project to research and develop smart data sharing contracts that enable new use cases for sharing data in cyber physical systems (CPS). This enables establishing and proving strong identities between humans, devices and even individual components and sensors in the devices.

Public R&D Collaboration Projects