Image Bhattarai

Hello! I'm Image, a Computer Science Ph.D. candidate with a passion for building secure, intelligent, and scalable systems. My work sits at the intersection of cybersecurity, machine learning, privacy-preserving systems, and distributed computing, where I focus on solving real-world challenges in IoT, drone networks, and intelligent systems.

Through graduate research and hands-on implementation, I have developed expertise in building secure and intelligent systems, working on projects involving machine learning, reinforcement learning, federated learning, cybersecurity, and full-stack development. My work focuses on designing practical, privacy-preserving solutions for distributed environments such as IoT and drone networks.

I enjoy turning complex ideas into practical solutions and continuously exploring new technologies to solve meaningful problems. This portfolio highlights my projects, research, and technical experiences. Feel free to explore my work, and don’t hesitate to reach out if you'd like to collaborate or connect.

Publications

• IEEE CCNC'26 "A Privacy Preserving Federated Learning-Based Authentication Scheme for Internet of Drones Systems", Image Bhattarai, Cong Pu
• IEEE CCNC'26 "Deep Reinforcement Learning-Based Data Download Scheduling Algorithm for Internet of Drones Systems", Image Bhattarai, Cong Pu
• IEEE IPCCC'25 "Secure and Privacy-Preserving Data Aggregation Against Malicious Gateway in RPL-Based Internet of Things", Image Bhattarai, Cong Pu- ACCEPTANCE RATE 32.1%
• IoT Journal "A Lightweight and Anonymous Application-Aware Authentication and Key Agreement Protocol for the Internet of Drones", Image Bhattarai, Cong Pu, Kim-Kwang Raymond Choo, Dragan Korac ́- IMPACT FACTOR 10.6
• IEEE CCNC'24 "A Lightweight Aggregate Authentication Protocol for Internet of Drones", Image Bhattarai, Cong Pu, Kim-Kwang Raymond Choo
• IEEE CCNC'24 "Chebyshev Polynomial and Private Blockchain Based Cross-Domain Authentication Protocol for IoD Networks", Cong Pu, Kim-Kwang Raymond Choo, Image Bhattarai

Awards!

• Best Paper Award

  Best paper award for "A Lightweight Aggregate Authentication Protocol for Internet of Drones" in IEEE CCNC'24

• Outstanding Researcher Award

  Won the Outstanding Researcher Award 2024, awarded by the OSU CS department

Projects

• SPARDA – Secure Data Aggregation for IoT Networks | Python, Raspberry Pi
  • Designed and implemented a secure data aggregation protocol for RPL-based IoT networks.
  • Used homomorphic encryption, PUFs, and trapdoor functions to defend against malicious gateway attacks.
  • Implemented and benchmarked the system in Python on Raspberry Pi 4.
• DrDre – Deep Reinforcement Learning-Based Scheduling for Internet of Drones | Python, Deep Learning
  • Developed a deep reinforcement learning scheduling system for drone data download requests.
  • Built a Python and SUMO simulation environment to model drone-ground station interactions.
  • Used Deep Q-Learning with request deadline, urgency, data size, priority, and popularity.
  • Improved request satisfaction and latency compared to baseline scheduling approaches.
• FLASH – Privacy-Preserving Federated Learning for Drone Authentication | MATLAB, Federated Learning
  • Built a federated learning-based drone authentication system using RF signal features.
  • Implemented a MATLAB-based deep neural network pipeline using CFO and I-Q imbalance features.
  • Protected local model updates using homomorphic encryption before global aggregation.
  • Benchmarked the framework against baseline authentication schemes.
• liteA4 – Application-Aware Authentication for Internet of Drones | Python, Cryptography
  • Designed a lightweight and anonymous authentication and key agreement protocol for Internet of Drones systems.
  • Established separate session keys for different data types to reduce sensitive data leakage risk.
  • Used hash functions, XOR operations, and PUFs to reduce computation, communication, storage, and energy overhead.
  • Verified protocol security using AVISPA and evaluated performance against benchmark schemes.
• liteAGAP – Lightweight Aggregate Authentication for Internet of Drones | Python, Aggregation
  • Developed an aggregate authentication protocol to secure communication between a ground station and a group of drones.
  • Used PUFs and bilinear pairing to support secure and efficient group authentication.
  • Implemented and evaluated the protocol against benchmark schemes for communication overhead, runtime, memory usage, and energy consumption.
  • Received the IEEE CCNC 2024 Best Paper Award for this work.
• polyBlock – Cross-Domain Authentication for IoD Networks | Java, Blockchain
  • Designed a cross-domain authentication protocol for drones communicating with ground stations across different physical domains.
  • Integrated Chebyshev polynomial-based authentication with private blockchain storage for drone cryptographic information.
  • Used changing pseudonyms to improve drone anonymity and reduce tracking risk.
  • Verified security with AVISPA and evaluated execution time and communication overhead.

Teaching

I served as a Graduate Teaching Assistant for the following courses:

• Data Structures and Algorithms

  Assisted students with core computer science concepts, including arrays, linked lists, trees, graphs, sorting, and algorithmic problem-solving.

• Organization of Programming Languages

  Supported coursework on programming language paradigms, syntax, semantics, control structures, and foundational language design principles.

• Introduction to Java

  Helped students build a foundation in Java programming, covering syntax, object-oriented programming, debugging, and basic software development practices.

• Introduction to Computer Security

  Supported coursework covering cryptography, network security, authentication, access control, vulnerabilities, and common security threats.

Latest News

• Paper Accepted to IEEE IPCCC!

  Our paper entitled "Secure and Privacy-Preserving Data Aggregation Against Malicious Gateway in RPL-Based Internet of Things" has been accepted to IEEE IPCCC - ACCEPTANCE RATE 32.1%

• Outstanding Researcher Award

  Won the Outstanding Researcher Award 2024, awarded by the OSU CS department.

• Paper Accepted to IoT-J Journal!

  Our paper entitled "A Lightweight and Anonymous Application-Aware Authentication and Key Agreement Protocol for the Internet of Drones" has been accepted to the Internet of Things Journal - IMPACT FACTOR 10.6

• Best Paper Award

  Our paper entitled "A Lightweight Aggregate Authentication Protocol for Internet of Drones" won the best paper award in IEEE CCNC