The first working online meeting of teachers and graduate students of the Department of Cybersecurity and Intelligent Information Technologies (503) of KhAI with representatives of the University of Florida took place. The parties discussed the prospects for joint work on digital twin technologies, artificial intelligence, geospatial analytics, unmanned systems and solutions for analyzing the resilience of the urban environment.
The University of Florida was represented by Karla Saldaña Ochoa, Associate Professor of the School of Architecture; Stacey Dolan, Research Coordinator of the Florida Institute for Built Environment Resilience, and Changjie Chen, Research Fellow of the same institute.
KhAI was represented by teachers of the Department 503 — Vyacheslav Kharchenko, Igor Klyushnikov, Olga Morozova, Tetyana Nikitina, Oleg Ilyashenko and Kyrylo Leichenko, as well as graduate students working on relevant technologies.
American colleagues spoke about their own projects on the use of digital twins and AI for monitoring and development of urban infrastructure and expressed their willingness to provide resources for joint research. Carla Saldana Ochoa presented the developments of the University of Florida, in particular the Human-in-the-Loop Digital Twins for University Operations project (more details on the website).
Vyacheslav Kharchenko spoke about the department's research in conditions of Russian aggression - in particular, the use of unmanned intelligent systems and digital twins for environmental and security monitoring of critical infrastructure. Tetyana Nikitina, who initiated the meeting, presented a video presentation on the analysis and increase of the resilience of university infrastructure in conditions of war using digital twins, intelligent and mobile technologies.
The KhAI and University of Florida teams outlined the outlines of a joint research program — a platform based on digital twins for the integration of sensor and mobile technologies, the Internet of Things, geospatial analysis, scenario modeling, and AI decision support in infrastructure security tasks.
The partners noted that their experience is complementary: for Florida, hurricanes, floods, coastal hazards, and other climate challenges for urban infrastructure are relevant, while Ukrainian universities and cities operate in wartime conditions — under the threat of infrastructure damage, cyberattacks, and energy instability.
The parties formulated this approach as “Different Threats – Shared Resilience Challenges and Solutions.” The meeting laid the foundation for joint research, publications, and project applications in the direction of “From Climate and Natural Hazards to Hybrid Disruptions: Digital Twins for Resilient Universities, Cities, and Communities.”
Collaboration with the University of Florida can unite the efforts of various departments of KhAI working on related topics to prepare new international projects and developments that strengthen the university's sustainability and infrastructure security.