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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Experiments for Securing Air Traffic Against Cyber-Physical System Attacks

This presentation describes experiments conducted with single board computers to investigate methods for creating trust for enabling the development of cyber-resilient air transportation systems. Methods included secure communication to prevent unauthorized access to data, consistency of data obtained via sensors and by processing, and built-in safeguards to prevent mission failure. The motivation for this work are the following. The future air transportation system needs to ensure availability, integrity, confidentiality and safety of operations. Safety of vehicles and operations is paramount for successful integration of Urban Air Mobility (UAM), Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), supersonic aircraft and launch vehicles with conventional aviation operations in the National Airspace System. Security is becoming critical because the sensors, networks and computers are far more vulnerable to bad actors than their mechanical or human predecessors. The goal therefore is to design and develop cyber-resilient systems that continue to function even in degraded states. The main findings are (1) off-the-shelf hardware can support development of cyber-resilient onboard flight computers and (2) trust in system design and implementation can be accomplished by integrating layers in depth (detail) and in breadth (scope).

cyber-resilient autonomy, trust, secure communicat↗
DOE OSTI2023

Moore Machine Motion Controls Refurbishment Statement of Work and Specification

Diamond Turning Machines known as “Moore” machines are used in the production of Potassium diHydrogen Phosphate (KDP) optics required for the National Ignition Facility (NIF). These machines are owned by the Department of Energy, as provided by Lawrence Livermore National Security LLC (LLNS). Moore Machines 1 and 2 are located at the Gooch & Housego (G&H) facility in Highland Heights, OH. The existing Aerotech motion controllers, motor drivers/amplifiers, input/output (I/O) hardware, control computer, software user interface, human machine interface (HMI), cabling, and encoders are beyond service life and require replacement. This Statement of Work (SoW) defines the motion control system refurbishment requirements for the Moore diamond turning machines designated Moore 1 and Moore 2. The motion controls system design shall include a motion control computer, control software, motor drive amplifiers and controllers, linear scale encoders, rotary encoders, HMI, power distribution, emergency stop (E-Stop) and interlocks, cabling, switches, solenoids, transducers, sensors, actuators, ancillary system interfaces, and related components necessary for a complete machine tool control system. The Subcontractor shall include effort to standardize systems between the two machines if reasonably possible.

42 ENGINEERING↗
NASA NTRS2014

Large Plant Growth Chambers: Flying Soon on a Space Station near You!

The International Space Station (ISS) now has platforms for conducting research on horticultural plant species, and those capabilities continue to grow. The Veggie vegetable production system will be deployed to the ISS in Spring of 2014 to act as an applied research platform with goals of studying food production in space, providing the crew with a source of fresh food, allowing behavioral health and plant microbiology experimentation, and being a source of recreation and enjoyment for the crew. Veggie was conceived, designed, and constructed by Orbital Technologies Corporation (ORBITEC, Madison, WI). Veggie is the largest plant growth chamber that NASA has flown to date, and is capable of growing a wide array of horticultural crops. It was designed for low energy usage, low launch mass and stowage volume, and minimal crew time requirements. The Veggie flight hardware consists of a light cap containing red (630 nanometers), blue, (455 nanometers) and green (530 nanometers) light emitting diodes. Interfacing with the light cap is an extendable bellows baseplate secured to the light cap via magnetic closures and stabilized with extensible flexible arms. The baseplate contains vents allowing air from the ISS cabin to be pulled through the plant growth area by a fan in the light cap. The baseplate holds a Veggie root mat reservoir that will supply water to plant pillows attached via elastic cords. Plant pillows are packages of growth media and seeds that will be sent to ISS dry and installed and hydrated on orbit. Pillows can be constructed in various sizes for different plant types. Watering will be via passive wicking from the root mat to the pillows. Science procedures will include photography or videography, plant thinning, pollination, harvesting, microbial sampling, water sampling, etcetera. Veggie is one of the ISS flight options currently available for research investigations on plants. The Plant Habitat (PH) is being designed and constructed through a NASA-ORBITEC collaboration, and is scheduled to fly on ISS around 2016. This large plant chamber will control light quality, level, and timing, temperature, CO2, relative humidity, and irrigation, while scrubbing ethylene. Additional monitoring capabilities include leaf temperature sensing and root zone moisture and oxygen sensing. The PH light cap will have red (630 nanometers), blue (450 nanometers), green (525 nanometers), far red (730 nanometers) and broad spectrum white light emitting diodes. There will be several internal cameras to monitor and record plant growth and operations.

Space Biology↗
DOE OSTI2024

Approaches for Autonomous Peer to Peer Communication: For Resilient Community Microgrids

The final phase of the Islandable Communications task of the SECURE project consisted of integrating the islandable communications network into a microgrid simulation at NREL. Initially integration was planned for a microgrid implemented as a mix of simulation and physical hardware. As the project evolved, the microgrid became fully simulated. The simulation environment was structured to break out the communication paths that would pass over a communication network in a field demonstration. The Islandable Communication network was integrated into the simulation environment, allowing both a commercial cellular carrier and a Private LTE network to be evaluated. The microgrid simulation showed differences in performance and behavior when operating over the wireless networks (compared to operating over wired Ethernet in the lab). These differences point to further research opportunities to better understand how microgrid communication carried over real-world or impaired networks affects the microgrid system behavior.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
NASA NTRS2000

Development of a Methodology to Conduct Usability Evaluation for Hand Tools that May Reduce the Amount of Small Parts that are Dropped During Installation while Processing Space Flight Hardware

Foreign object debris (FOD) is an important concern while processing space flight hardware. FOD can be defined as "The debris that is left in or around flight hardware, where it could cause damage to that flight hardware," (United Space Alliance, 2000). Just one small screw left unintentionally in the wrong place could delay a launch schedule while it is retrieved, increase the cost of processing, or cause a potentially fatal accident. At this time, there is not a single solution to help reduce the number of dropped parts such as screws, bolts, nuts, and washers during installation. Most of the effort is currently focused on training employees and on capturing the parts once they are dropped. Advances in ergonomics and hand tool design suggest that a solution may be possible, in the form of specialty hand tools, which secure the small parts while they are being handled. To assist in the development of these new advances, a test methodology was developed to conduct a usability evaluation of hand tools, while performing tasks with risk of creating FOD. The methodology also includes hardware in the form of a testing board and the small parts that can be installed onto the board during a test. The usability of new hand tools was determined based on efficiency and the number of dropped parts. To validate the methodology, participants were tested while performing a task that is representative of the type of work that may be done when processing space flight hardware. Test participants installed small parts using their hands and two commercially available tools. The participants were from three groups: (1) students, (2) engineers / managers and (3) technicians. The test was conducted to evaluate the differences in performance when using the three installation methods, as well as the difference in performance of the three participant groups.

Miller, Darcy↗
NASA NTRS2007

Distributed Operations Planning

Maestro software provides a secure and distributed mission planning system for long-term missions in general, and the Mars Exploration Rover Mission (MER) specifically. Maestro, the successor to the Science Activity Planner, has a heavy emphasis on portability and distributed operations, and requires no data replication or expensive hardware, instead relying on a set of services functioning on JPL institutional servers. Maestro works on most current computers with network connections, including laptops. When browsing down-link data from a spacecraft, Maestro functions similarly to being on a Web browser. After authenticating the user, it connects to a database server to query an index of data products. It then contacts a Web server to download and display the actual data products. The software also includes collaboration support based upon a highly reliable messaging system. Modifications made to targets in one instance are quickly and securely transmitted to other instances of Maestro. The back end that has been developed for Maestro could benefit many future missions by reducing the cost of centralized operations system architecture.

Fox, Jason↗
DOE OSTI2023

Modbus RTU for Embedded Cyber Secure Inverter Controller

The Modbus communication protocol is a widely adopted communication standard in industrial control systems. This communication protocol is known for being reliable and straightforward to implement while being versatile in terms of its operating parameters while supporting multiple formats over various hardware infrastructures and architectures. Many intelligent devices such as Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs), Human-Machine Interfaces (HMIs), Internet-of-Things (IoT), and various Operational Technologies (OT) utilize Modbus for their communication systems. These types of systems must communicate with each other through a standardized and central communication process. To support the integration of these modular systems, a Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) can act as an embedded central routing fabric for this communication to take place. Embedded systems are versatile enough to interface with various devices and systems to accomplish various goals. Additionally, embedded systems require relatively small physical designs to minimize the required resources to facilitate the intended application by providing low-level system access. This minimization of system resources goes hand in hand with reducing the financial cost of a proposed solution or system. As remotely collaborating researchers often use FPGAs to prototype designs that are required to have a method for data transmission among systems, it is imperative to provide a baseline standard for communications among devices and systems. A typical method of implementing the Modbus RTU communication protocol in an embedded environment is using integrated logic architectures within the FPGA called “Intellectual Property (IP) cores.” IP cores can be designed using integrated logic or circuit designs to function as an embedded processor. These IP cores can then perform the required computational actions to support the Modbus RTU communication protocol by utilizing high-level programming languages such as the C programming language. The hardware description language of Very High-Speed Integrated Circuit Hardware Description Language (VHDL) allows for the control of real hardware at the logic gate and signal level. These logic gates and signals can be designed and controlled to perform desired actions based on the system design. Programming an FPGA using VHDL allows an individual to access the lowest abstraction level of the system during FPGA development. This level of abstraction is referred to as the register-transfer level (RTL), which gives access to manipulating values and variables at the register level. This register-level manipulation provides precision over creating the logical circuit within the FPGA, thus minimizing the required code to perform desired operations. The Modbus RTU communication protocol can be implemented within an FPGA using VHDL programming to establish a standardized and embedded serial communication pathway. This implementation provides a standardized communication protocol to streamline research efforts among researchers, thus increasing the efficiency of research efforts. Additionally, this Modbus RTU implementation requires fewer resources when compared to typical communication protocol implementations that utilize an IP core, reducing the hardware requirement for effective research efforts.

communication↗
DOE OSTI2026

Lightfall v0.0.1

Lightfall is a desktop application for synchrotron beamline instrument control, data acquisition, and live analysis at the Advanced Light Source (ALS). Built on Python and Qt, it provides a native graphical interface for operating beamline hardware, configuring and executing experimental scans, and visualizing results in real time. Key features include direct integration with EPICS control systems, a built-in electronic logbook, remote beamline access over secure tunnels, and an interprocess communication (IPC) architecture that coordinates with external analysis applications via ZMQ and EPICS process variables. This IPC approach allows Lightfall to orchestrate specialized analysis tools—including GPU-accelerated streaming correlators—without embedding them, avoiding the dependency conflicts common in monolithic scientific software platforms. Compared to prior approaches such as Xi-CAM's plugin-based architecture, Lightfall's design cleanly separates instrument control from domain-specific analysis, enabling feedback-driven acquisition where live analysis results can adjust scan parameters during an experiment. Its native Qt interface provides responsive performance for real-time data visualization that web-based alternatives struggle to match. Lightfall is designed for use by beamline scientists and staff operating synchrotron instruments at national user facilities.

Pandolfi, Ronald [Lawrence Berkeley National Labor↗
DOE OSTI2024

Sigma Division Capability Strategy

Sigma Division maintains a unique manufacturing science capability at Los Alamos National Laboratory that has made substantial contributions to weapons component process development for more than 70 years. This mission requires the ability to handle a range of radiological and hazardous materials, work with a variety of metallic and non-metallic components, and process materials systems with elements spanning hydrogen to uranium. Today, Sigma serves as a national resource for uranium research and development, provides hardware for experimental campaigns, supports production by demonstrating modern fabrication technologies, and conducts manufacturing science research primarily for customers across the nuclear weapons complex, including the Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration, and Office of Defense Programs.

45 MILITARY TECHNOLOGY, WEAPONRY, AND NATIONAL DEF↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Runtime Monitoring with R2U2 for Aircraft Systems with Neural Networks

R2U2 (Realizable, Responsive, Unobtrusive Unit) is a hardware-supported tool and framework for real-time system monitoring and software health management of cyber-physical systems. During system operation, R2U2 continuously monitors properties about safety, performance, and security of the vehicle and its vital components and can perform diagnostic reasoning. Efficient observers for past-time and future-time Metric Temporal Logic, fast reasoners for Bayesian Networks, and model-based prognostics algorithms are key components of R2U2 and designed for minimal computational footprint. R2U2 has been implemented in software supporting ROS, NASA's cFS/cFE, and Simulink and as an FPGA configuration. The synergistic combination of monitors and observers in R2U2 makes it possible to design powerful models for system runtime monitoring, diagnostics, software health management, prognostics, and security monitoring. In this presentation, I will give a detailed overview of the R2U2 architecture and its features and will discuss the application of R2U2 for safety-monitoring of a neural-network based autonomous centerline tracking system (ACT) for autonomous aircraft.

Runtime Monitoring↗
NASA NTRS2008

Space Science and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations: Summary of a Workshop

The United States seeks to protect its security and foreign-policy interests, in part, by actively controlling the export of goods, technologies, and services that are or may be useful for military development in other nations. "Export" is defined not simply as the sending abroad of hardware but also as the communication of related technology and know-how to foreigners in the United States and overseas. The U.S. government mechanism for controlling dual-use items--items in commerce that have potential military use is the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) administered by the Department of Commerce; items defined in law as defense articles fall under the jurisdiction of the Department of State and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). Because of the potential military implications of the export of defense articles, the ITAR regime imposes much greater burdens (on both the applicant and the government) than does the EAR regime during the process of applying for, and implementing the provisions of, licenses and technical-assistance agreements. Until the early 1990s export control activity related to all space satellites (commercial and scientific) was handled under ITAR. Between 1992 and 1996 the George H.W. Bush and the Clinton administrations transferred jurisdiction over the licensing of civilian communications satellites to the Commerce Department under EAR. In 1999, however, in response to broad concerns about Chinese attempts to acquire U.S. high technology, the U.S. House of Representatives convened the Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People s Republic of China, also known as the Cox Committee. One of the many consequences of the Cox Committee's report was Congress's mandate that jurisdiction over export and licensing of satellites and related equipment and services, irrespective of military utility, be transferred from the Department of Commerce to the State Department and that such equipment and services be covered as defense articles under ITAR. Scientific satellites were explicitly included despite their use for decades in peaceful internationally conducted cooperative scientific research. It is widely recognized that the shift in regulatory regime from EAR to ITAR has had major deleterious effects on international scientific research activities that depend on satellites, spaceflight hardware, and other items that are now controlled by ITAR. Furthermore, contravening U.S. interests in attracting foreign students to U.S. universities, the capture of space technology by ITAR has caused serious problems in the teaching of university space science and engineering classes, virtually all of which include non-U.S. students. This report is a summary of a September 2007 workshop in which participants from the space research communities and the export-control administration and policy communities came together to discuss problems, effects, and potential solutions regarding the application of ITAR to space science. The principal themes and ideas that emerged from the discussions are summarized.

Finarelli, Margaret G.↗
DOE OSTI2025

Maturing Rational Design Methodologies and Industry Consensus Engineering Standards: Critical Fastened Joints - Solar PV Industry

Critical structural joints can be seen throughout a solar array and are called upon to secure modules and keep racking assembled and able to resist large demands from winds and snow loads. In the relatively new and fast-growing solar PV industry, the important role these hardware assemblies (e.g. clips, clamps, bolts, nuts, washers) play is not well understood by product designers. Failures with critical structural joints are surprisingly common and point to the need for maturing the engineering and assembly of these joints. The wide variety of design concepts (Figure 2&2) demonstrate interesting and innovative ideas but are lacking the basics of fastener engineering seen in matured industries (e.g. transportation, buildings). Complicating the maturing process for critical structural joints is that they are one component in rack supporting structures that exhibits a systems behavior; each component will affect the other and play a key role in maintaining structural integrity. When wind loads the surface of a module, the underlying racking members deflect and twist which in turn imparts forces back into the joints and into the mounted modules. Often, these supporting rack structures exhibit high deflections and low natural frequencies which amplify the demands placed into the joints even in moderate winds. Current engineering practices and associated structural conventions view solar racking support structures as they would a high mass building that exhibit more static behaviors in wind events. Solar structures are unique from high mass buildings and require the development of solar specific industry engineering consensus standards.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2020

2020 Exascale Computing Project Annual Meeting (Executive Summary Report)

The Exascale Computing Project (ECP) delivers specific applications, software products, and outcomes on DOE computing facilities. Integration across these elements for specific hardware technologies for exascale system instantiations is fundamental to ECP success. The outcome of the ECP is the delivery of a capable exascale computing ecosystem to provide breakthrough solutions addressing our most critical challenges in scientific discovery, energy assurance, economic competitiveness, and national security. This outcome is not a matter of ensuring more powerful computing systems. The ECP is designed to create more valuable and rapid insights from a wide variety of applications (“capable”), which requires a much higher level of inherent efficacy in all methods, software tools, and ECP-enabled computing technologies to be acquired by DOE laboratories (“ecosystem”). The ECP annual meeting provides a unique opportunity for the core technical expertise in the United States focused on achieving this next plateau of computational science and computing performance to engage in direct discussions on project execution. Face-to-face gatherings in technical communities like this are common and needed for the exchange of scientific ideas and technical performance. The ECP annual meeting stands apart from other technical conferences and meetings in the computing community as it is uniquely and solely focused on the execution of the ECP and the integration of technical activities leading to the creation of the exascale computing ecosystem for the future. The direct interaction of key critical technical staff, who are leaders in their respective fields, and the resulting give-and-take between software, applications, and hardware and the technical co-design therein, is unique and essential to the effective execution of the ECP. The first annual meeting was held in Knoxville, Tennessee, January 31 – February 2, 2017 and brought together, for the first time, a diverse collection of researchers from 16 DOE national laboratories as well as university computer and computational science researchers to discuss shared problems and joint solutions for the development of a capable exascale computing ecosystem. These interactions resulted in focused technical plans and an energized community centered on advances for ECP. The second annual meeting was held in Knoxville, Tennessee, February 5–9, 2018. It included 643 individual thought leaders and performers in application development, software research and deployment, and hardware research and integrators, all of whom are part of the multifaceted, billion dollar HPC community. This meeting provided a platform to discuss and disseminate numerous examples where researchers with common goals and synergistic solutions came together for the first time to deliver tangible results. Additionally, at the 2018 meeting, ECP researchers had the opportunity to digest all US HPC vendor R&D product roadmaps pointing to exascale – not only to learn how their research can play a role, but, more importantly, to influence those roadmaps to ensure successful delivery on DOE applications that will contribute to (if not solve) problems of national interest in national security, science, energy, and health, as well as growing security threats. The third annual meeting was held in Houston, Texas, January 14–17, 2019. With a 19% increase in the number of registrations (768 people), and the change in location, the third annual meeting was considered the most impactful of the three at the time. The new website provided a better platform for the dissemination of the content, the new venue as a meeting hotel instead of a conference center facilitated interactions and discussions after event hours, and the addition of an award-winning mobile event conference app (Whova) transformed dramatically the attendee experience at the event. This fourth annual meeting was held in Houston, Texas, February 3-7, 2020. This meeting had an increase in the number of attendees for a total of 824 people registered (782 attendees) and included numerous enhancements based on feedback and lessons learned from previous meetings, some of which are listed here: Improved quality of the sessions, their material and the whole program.; Had more industry participation and addition of external collaborators from overseas.; Published the full agenda earlier to better accommodate attendance and travel plans based on schedule.; Centralized all sessions in one venue.; Provided additional hotels and room blocks for the attendees.; Improved communication with the audience (links, material, directions, notifications, etc.) to go paperless.; Enhanced side meeting scheduling, management and user experience.; Made available additional space and tables for impromptu meetings and side discussions.; Improved IT and A/V solutions for speakers. In addition, our final survey captured the following points as opportunities for improvement in future meetings: consider a different meeting location that is more pedestrian friendly, reduce talks during working meals to allow more collaboration and informal time, adapt the agenda to acknowledge attendees from different timezones, consider recording some of the tutorials and/or sessions to share broadly with the HPC community, have a larger poster room, provide additional power strips, and improve the WiFi.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
NASA NTRS1976

Implementation of an experimental fault-tolerant memory system

The experimental fault-tolerant memory system described in this paper has been designed to enable the modular addition of spares, to validate the theoretical fault-secure and self-testing properties of the translator/corrector, to provide a basis for experiments using the new testing and correction processes for recovery, and to determine the practicality of such systems. The hardware design and implementation are described, together with methods of fault insertion. The hardware/software interface, including a restricted single error correction/double error detection (SEC/DED) code, is specified. Procedures are carefully described which, (1) test for specified physical faults, (2) ensure that single error corrections are not miscorrections due to triple faults, and (3) enable recovery from double errors.

Carter, W. C.↗
NASA NTRS1998

Issues and Methods for Assessing COTS Reliability, Maintainability, and Availability

Many vendors produce products that are not domain specific (e.g., network server) and have limited functionality (e.g., mobile phone). In contrast, many customers of COTS develop systems that am domain specific (e.g., target tracking system) and have great variability in functionality (e.g., corporate information system). This discussion takes the viewpoint of how the customer can ensure the quality of COTS components. In evaluating the benefits and costs of using COTS, we must consider the environment in which COTS will operate. Thus we must distinguish between using a non-mission critical application like a spreadsheet program to produce a budget and a mission critical application like military strategic and tactical operations. Whereas customers will tolerate an occasional bug in the former, zero tolerance is the rule in the latter. We emphasize the latter because this is the arena where there are major unresolved problems in the application of COTS. Furthermore, COTS components may be embedded in the larger customer system. We refer to these as embedded systems. These components must be reliable, maintainable, and available, and must be with the larger system in order for the customer to benefit from the advertised advantages of lower development and maintenance costs. Interestingly, when the claims of COTS advantages are closely examined, one finds that to a great extent these COTS components consist of hardware and office products, not mission critical software [1]. Obviously, COTS components are different from custom components with respect to one or more of the following attributes: source, development paradigm, safety, reliability, maintainability, availability, security, and other attributes. However, the important question is whether they should be treated differently when deciding to deploy them for operational use; we suggest the answer is no. We use reliability as an example to justify our answer. In order to demonstrate its reliability, a COTS component must pass the same reliability evaluations as the custom components, otherwise the COTS components will be the weakest link in the chain of components and will be the determinant of software system reliability. The challenge is that there will be less information available for evaluating COTS components than for custom components but this does not mean we should despair and do nothing. Actually, there is a lot we can do even in the absence of documentation on COTS components because the customer will have information about how COTS components are to be used in the larger system. To illustrate our approach, we will consider the reliability, maintainability, and availability (RMA) of COTS components as used in larger systems. Finally, COTS suppliers might consider increasing visibility into their products to assist customers in determining the components' fitness for use in a particular application. We offer ideas of information that would be useful to customers, and what vendors might do to provide it.

Schneidewind, Norman F.↗
NASA NTRS2017

[Network Design of the Spaceport Command and Control System]

I helped the Launch Control System (LCS) hardware team sustain the network design of the Spaceport Command and Control System. I wrote the procedure that will be used to satisfy an official hardware test for the hardware carrying data from the Launch Vehicle. I installed hardware and updated design documents in support of the ongoing development of the Spaceport Command and Control System and applied firewall experience I gained during my spring 2017 semester to inspect and create firewall security policies as requested. Finally, I completed several online courses concerning networking fundamentals and Unix operating systems.

Teijeiro, Antonio↗
NASA NTRS1966

Rocket engine vibration accurately measured by photography

High speed instrumentation camera focused on a partially masked light bulb which is securely mounted to the test fixture permits measurement of engine performance parameters when usual electronic vibration instrumentation is unavailable. Vibration is recorded as a light trace deviating from the light rays photographed in the static hardware condition.

Craig, K. A.↗
DOE OSTI2024

LEED: A Lightwave Energy-Efficient Datacenter

The Lightwave Energy-Efficient Datacenter (LEED) program is a disruptive “green-field” approach that provides a quantum leap in the energy efficiency of datacenters. LEED’s fundamental value proposition is that a novel and re-architected optical network—RotorNet— can deliver “more bandwidth per buck” as well as unique system-level attributes that significantly improve overall datacenter energy efficiency and performance. LEED has developed three system-level testbeds. The first testbed uses calibrated hardware and software power measurements to determine server energy efficiency as a function of network bandwidth and workload. These measurements have shown that increasing network communications bandwidth dramatically increases server energy efficiency providing a realistic path to the overall ENLITENED program goal of doubling the number of transactions per joule. The second testbed demonstrates key hardware: a prototype low-loss, high-port count optical “selector switch”. This switch was fabricated, racked, and tested. Measured switch characteristics include loss, bandwidth, crosstalk, switch time, system-level switch time (including the transceivers), and bit error rate. The third testbed demonstrates a fully working and manufactured pinwheel design which dramatically lowers the cost of design, while delivering high switch radix and low reconfiguration times. The LEED project has tied these three novel photonic switch prototypes together with production servers and software through the development of a novel FPGA-based NIC platform called Corundum. Corundum ensures that the packet-switched protocols supported by commodity operating systems and devices can interface with the Rotor switch design. The LEED group has used this combined hardware and software prototype to characterize applications running at a commercially relevant scale. The project has used a combination of enhanced optical modulation amplitude (OMA) modulators, broadband multiplexers and demultiplexers, avalanche photodiodes, and a novel burst-mode receivers to enable the insertion of LEED-developed optical switches without the need for expensive optical amplification. Our modeling has shown that measured LEED-developed device characteristics can achieve link characteristics of 2 pJ/bit including both transceivers and the Rotor switch. In summary, the LEED program has demonstrated a credible and practical path, through novel hardware and software, to realize the program objectives of ENLITENED. The net result will ensure that the United States maintains its strength in the crucial sector of Information Technology, which is vital to both our economic security and our national security.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗