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At least 37 records · Page 2

Deception-Based Cyber Attacks on Hierarchical Control Systems using Domain-Aware Koopman Learning

Industrial control systems are subject to cyber attacks that produce physical consequences. These attacks can be both hard to detect and protracted. Here, we focus on deception-based sensor bias attacks made against a hierarchical control system where the attacker attempts to be stealthy. We develop a a data-driven, optimization-based attacker model and use the Koopman operator to represent the system dynamics in a domain-aware and computationally efficient manner. Using this model, we compute several different attacks against a high-fidelity commercial building emulator and compare the impacts of those attacks to each other. Finally, we discuss some computational considerations and identify avenues for future research.

koopman operator, Cyber-Physical Security, machine↗

Sensor and Actuator Attacks on Hierarchical Control Systems with Domain-Aware Operator Theory

Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) provide opportunities for cyber attacks to have physical impacts. Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) are a subclass of cyber threats that act stealthily to avoid detection and enable long-term attacks. Here, we build on our past work in APT modelling to combine deception-based sensor bias attacks and direct actuator manipulations in attacks against a hierarchical control system. That past work used the Koopman operator to develop a data-driven, domain-aware, optimization-based attacker model. Using an expansion of this model, we compute several different attacks, including multiple simultaneous attacks, against a high-fidelity commercial building emulator and compare the impacts of those attacks to each other. One next step of interest is to construct a defender system, built on the same modelling approach, designed to detect and mitigate such attacks.

koopman operator, Cyber-Physical Security, machine↗

CAMERA: A method for cost-aware, adaptive, multifidelity, efficient reliability analysis

Estimating probability of failure in aerospace systems is a critical requirement for flight certification and qualification. Failure probability estimation involves resolving tails of probability distributions, and Monte Carlo sampling methods are intractable when expensive high-fidelity simulations have to be queried. Here, we propose a method to use models of multiple fidelities that trade accuracy for computational efficiency. Specifically, we propose the use of multifidelity Gaussian process models to efficiently fuse models at multiple fidelity, thereby offering a cheap surrogate model that emulates the original model at all fidelities. Furthermore, we propose a novel sequential acquisition function based experiment design framework that can automatically select samples from appropriate fidelity models to make predictions about quantities of interest at the highest fidelity. We use our proposed approach in an importance sampling setting and demonstrate our method on the failure level set and probability estimation on synthetic test functions and two real-world applications, namely, the reliability analysis of a gas turbine engine blade using a finite element method and a transonic aerodynamic wing test case using Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations. We show that our method predicts the failure boundary and probability more accurately and at a fraction of the computational cost compared with using just a single expensive high-fidelity model. Finally, we show that our sequential approach is guaranteed to asymptotically converge to the true failure boundary with high probability.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Exploration of multifidelity UQ sampling strategies for computer network applications.

Network modeling is a powerful tool to enable rapid analysis of complex systems that can be challenging to study directly using physical testing. Here, two approaches are considered: emulation and simulation. The former runs real software on virtualized hardware, while the latter mimics the behavior of network components and their interactions in software. Although emulation provides an accurate representation of physical networks, this approach alone cannot guarantee the characterization of the system under realistic operative conditions. Operative conditions for physical networks are often characterized by intrinsic variability (payload size, packet latency, etc.) or a lack of precise knowledge regarding the network configuration (bandwidth, delays, etc.); therefore uncertainty quantification (UQ) strategies should be also employed. UQ strategies require multiple evaluations of the system with a number of evaluation instances that roughly increases with the problem dimensionality, i.e., the number of uncertain parameters. It follows that a typical UQ workflow for network modeling based on emulation can easily become unattainable due to its prohibitive computational cost. In this paper, a multifidelity sampling approach is discussed and applied to network modeling problems. The main idea is to optimally fuse information coming from simulations, which are a low-fidelity version of the emulation problem of interest, in order to decrease the estimator variance. By reducing the estimator variance in a sampling approach it is usually possible to obtain more reliable statistics and therefore a more reliable system characterization. Several network problems of increasing difficulty are presented. For each of them, the performance of the multifidelity estimator is compared with respect to the single fidelity counterpart, namely, Monte Carlo sampling. For all the test problems studied in this work, the multifidelity estimator demonstrated an increased efficiency with respect to MC.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

A Hardware-in-the-Loop Testbed for Spacecraft Formation Flying Applications

The Formation Flying Test Bed (FFTB) at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) is being developed as a modular, hybrid dynamic simulation facility employed for end-to-end guidance, navigation, and control (GN&C) analysis and design for formation flying clusters and constellations of satellites. The FFTB will support critical hardware and software technology development to enable current and future missions for NASA, other government agencies, and external customers for a wide range of missions, particularly those involving distributed spacecraft operations. The initial capabilities of the FFTB are based upon an integration of high fidelity hardware and software simulation, emulation, and test platforms developed at GSFC in recent years; including a high-fidelity GPS simulator which has been a fundamental component of the Guidance, Navigation, and Control Center's GPS Test Facility. The FFTB will be continuously evolving over the next several years from a too[ with initial capabilities in GPS navigation hardware/software- in-the- loop analysis and closed loop GPS-based orbit control algorithm assessment to one with cross-link communications and relative navigation analysis and simulation capability. Eventually the FFT13 will provide full capability to support all aspects of multi-sensor, absolute and relative position determination and control, in all (attitude and orbit) degrees of freedom, as well as information management for satellite clusters and constellations. In this paper we focus on the architecture for the FFT13 as a general GN&C analysis environment for the spacecraft formation flying community inside and outside of NASA GSFC and we briefly reference some current and future activities which will drive the requirements and development.

Leitner, Jesse↗

Accelerating cosmological inference with Gaussian processes and neural networks – an application to LSST Y1 weak lensing and galaxy clustering

ABSTRACT Studying the impact of systematic effects, optimizing survey strategies, assessing tensions between different probes and exploring synergies of different data sets require a large number of simulated likelihood analyses, each of which cost thousands of CPU hours. In this paper, we present a method to accelerate cosmological inference using emulators based on Gaussian process regression and neural networks. We iteratively acquire training samples in regions of high posterior probability which enables accurate emulation of data vectors even in high dimensional parameter spaces. We showcase the performance of our emulator with a simulated 3×2 point analysis of LSST-Y1 with realistic theoretical and systematics modelling. We show that our emulator leads to high-fidelity posterior contours, with an order of magnitude speed-up. Most importantly, the trained emulator can be re-used for extremely fast impact and optimization studies. We demonstrate this feature by studying baryonic physics effects in LSST-Y1 3×2 point analyses where each one of our MCMC runs takes approximately 5 min. This technique enables future cosmological analyses to map out the science return as a function of analysis choices and survey strategy.

Astronomy & Astrophysics↗

Simulation of Guidance, Navigation, and Control Systems for Formation Flying Missions

Concepts for missions of distributed spacecraft flying in formation abound. From high resolution interferometry to spatially distributed in-situ measurements, these mission concepts levy a myriad of guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) requirements on the spacecraft/formation as a single system. A critical step toward assessing and meeting these challenges lies in realistically simulating distributed spacecraft systems. The Formation Flying TestBed (FFTB) at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center's (GSFC) Guidance, Navigation, and Control Center is a hardware-in-the-loop simulation and development facility focused on GNC issues relevant to formation flying systems. The FFTB provides a realistic simulation of the vehicle dynamics and control for formation flying missions in order to: (1) conduct feasibility analyses of mission requirements, (2) conduct and answer mission and spacecraft design trades, and (3) serve as a host for GNC software and hardware development and testing. The initial capabilities of the FFTB are based upon an integration of high fidelity hardware and software simulation, emulation, and test platforms developed or employed at GSFC in recent years, including a high-fidelity Global Positioning System (GPS) simulator which has been a fundamental component of the GNC Center's GPS Test Facility. The FFTB will be continuously evolving over the next several years from a tool with capabilities in GPS navigation hardware/software-in-the-loop analysis and closed loop GPS-based orbit control algorithm assessment. Eventually, it will include full capability to support all aspects of multi-sensor, absolute and relative state determination and control, in all (attitude and orbit) degrees of freedom, as well as information management for satellite clusters and constellations. A detailed description of the FFTB architecture is presented in the paper.

Burns, Rich↗

Application of the AI2 Climate Emulator to E3SMv2's Global Atmosphere Model, With a Focus on Precipitation Fidelity

Abstract Can the current successes of global machine learning‐based weather simulators be generalized beyond 2‐week forecasts to stable and accurate multiyear runs? The recently developed AI2 Climate Emulator (ACE) suggests this is feasible, based upon 10‐year simulations with a network trained on output from a physics‐based global atmosphere model using a grid spacing of approximately 110 km and forced by a repeating annual cycle of sea‐surface temperature. Here we show that ACE, without modification, can be trained to emulate another major atmospheric model, EAMv2, run at a comparable grid spacing for at least 10 years with similarly small climate biases—a prerequisite to wider applicability. With an analysis that combines multiple temporal, spatial, and frequency domain perspectives, we show that ACE faithfully represents the spatiotemporal structure of EAMv2 precipitation and related variables. Finally, we show that a pretrained ACE network is able to adapt to a new global climate model simulation data set with 10 fewer training steps than when starting from random initialization, all while still maintaining low levels of climate bias. Further analysis of these fine‐tuning experiments reveal ACE's intriguing ability to interpolate between distinct global climate models.

Duncan, James P. C.↗

Bayes goes fast: Uncertainty quantification for a covariant energy density functional emulated by the reduced basis method

A covariant energy density functional is calibrated using a principled Bayesian statistical framework informed by experimental binding energies and charge radii of several magic and semi-magic nuclei. The Bayesian sampling required for the calibration is enabled by the emulation of the high-fidelity model through the implementation of a reduced basis method (RBM)—a set of dimensionality reduction techniques that can speed up demanding calculations involving partial differential equations by several orders of magnitude. The RBM emulator we build—using only 100 evaluations of the high-fidelity model—is able to accurately reproduce the model calculations in tens of milliseconds on a personal computer, an increase in speed of nearly a factor of 3,300 when compared to the original solver. Besides the analysis of the posterior distribution of parameters, we present model calculations for masses and radii with properly estimated uncertainties. We also analyze the model correlation between the slope of the symmetry energy L and the neutron skin of 48 Ca and 208 Pb. The straightforward implementation and outstanding performance of the RBM makes it an ideal tool for assisting the nuclear theory community in providing reliable estimates with properly quantified uncertainties of physical observables. Such uncertainty quantification tools will become essential given the expected abundance of data from the recently inaugurated and future experimental and observational facilities.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

Toward Accelerated Nuclear-physics Parameter Estimation from Binary Neutron Star Mergers: Emulators for the Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkoff Equations

Abstract Gravitational-wave observations of binary neutron-star (BNS) mergers have the potential to revolutionize our understanding of the nuclear equation of state (EOS) and the fundamental interactions that determine its properties. However, Bayesian parameter estimation frameworks do not typically sample over microscopic nuclear-physics parameters that determine the EOS. One of the major hurdles in doing so is the computational cost involved in solving the neutron-star structure equations, known as the Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkoff (TOV) equations. In this paper, we explore approaches to emulating solutions for the TOV equations: multilayer perceptrons (MLPs), Gaussian processes, and a data-driven variant of the reduced basis method (RBM). We implement these emulators for three different parameterizations of the nuclear EOS, each with a different degree of complexity represented by the number of model parameters. We find that our MLP-based emulators are generally more accurate than the other two algorithms, whereas the RBM results in the largest speedup with respect to the full high-fidelity TOV solver. We employ these emulators for a simple parameter inference using a potentially loud BNS observation and show that the posteriors predicted by our emulators are in excellent agreement with those obtained from the full TOV solver.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Thermally induced cracking on the massive concrete structure of the NSLS II synchrotron and its engineering remediation

Synchrotron accelerator facilities such as the NSLS II require extreme stability, both transient (short-term) and quasi-static (long-term) to achieve the desired resolution performance. Consequently, even μm-level movements, particularly differential movements between locations in the concrete structure supporting the accelerator electron beam lattice (storage ring) or high sensitivity experiments (experimental floor) will lead to serious degradation of its performance. Differential settlement in the overall structure or structural movement exceeding anticipated levels will inevitably degrade the performance and will require intervention. Presented in this paper are the design philosophy of the NSLS II ring structure favoring a monolithic ring, the observed cracking behavior of the young NSLS II concrete following casting and in combination with extreme ambient temperature fluctuation, the results of a non-linear, high-fidelity numerical analysis used to emulate the observed cracking and establish the driving mechanism, the numerical analysis-based identification of the crack-arresting solution and finally the implementation of the remediation solution and the long-term performance of the adopted engineering solution. The multi-stage process revealed that computational methods such as non-linear finite element methods have the potential of providing engineering guidance even when complex structures and in combination with non-linear materials, such as steel reinforcement and concrete are involved.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Cosmological constraints from density-split clustering in the BOSS CMASS galaxy sample

We present a clustering analysis of the BOSS DR12 CMASS galaxy sample, combining measurements of the galaxy two-point correlation function and density-split clustering down to a scale of $1 \, h^{-1}\, \text{Mpc}$. Our theoretical framework is based on emulators trained on high-fidelity mock galaxy catalogues that forward model the cosmological dependence of the clustering statistics within an extended-ΛCDM framework, including redshift-space and Alcock–Paczynski distortions. Our base-ΛCDM analysis finds ω cdm = 0.1201 ± 0.0022, σ 8 = 0.792 ± 0.034, and n s = 0.970 ± 0.018, corresponding to fσ 8 = 0.462 ± 0.020 at z ≈ 0.525, which is in agreement with Planck 2018 predictions and various clustering studies in the literature. We test single-parameter extensions to base-ΛCDM, varying the running of the spectral index, the dark energy equation of state, and the density of mass-less relic neutrinos, finding no compelling evidence for deviations from the base model. We model the galaxy–halo connection using a halo occupation distribution framework, finding signatures of environment-based assembly bias in the data. We validate our pipeline against mock catalogues that match the clustering and selection properties of CMASS, showing that we can recover unbiased cosmological constraints even with a volume 84 times larger than the one used in this study.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Three-Dimensional Engineered High Fidelity Normal Human Lung Tissue-Like Assemblies (TLA) as Targets for Human Respiratory Virus Infections

Unlike traditional two-dimensional (2D) cell cultures, three-dimensional (3D) tissue-like assemblies (TLA) (Goodwin et aI, 1992, 1993, 2000 and Nickerson et aI. , 2001,2002) offer high organ fidelity with the potential to emulate the infective dynamics of viruses and bacteria in vivo. Thus, utilizing NASA micro gravity Rotating Wall Vessel (RWV) technology, in vitro human broncho-epithelial (HBE) TLAs were engineered to mimic in vivo tissue for study of human respiratory viruses. These 3D HBE TLAs were propagated from a human broncho-tracheal cell line with a mesenchymal component (HBTC) as the foundation matrix and either an adult human broncho-epithelial cell (BEAS-2B) or human neonatal epithelial cell (16HBE140-) as the overlying element. Resulting TLAs share several characteristic features with in vivo human respiratory epithelium including tight junctions, desmosomes and cilia (SEM, TEM). The presence of epithelium and specific lung epithelium markers furthers the contention that these HBE cells differentiate into TLAs paralleling in vivo tissues. A time course of infection of these 3D HBE TLAs with human respiratory syncytial virus (hRSV) wild type A2 strain, indicates that virus replication and virus budding are supported and manifested by increasing virus titer and detection of membrane-bound F and G glycoproteins. Infected 3D HBE TLAs remain intact for up to 12 days compared to infected 2D cultures that are destroyed in 2-3 days. Infected cells show an increased vacuolation and cellular destruction (by transmission electron microscopy) by day 9; whereas, uninfected cells remain robust and morphologically intact. Therefore, the 3D HBE TLAs mimic aspects of human respiratory epithelium providing a unique opportunity to analyze, for the first time, simulated in vivo viral infection independent of host immune response.

Goodwin, T. J.↗

EXERGETIC: De-Risking Next-Generation Resilient Geothermal Hybrids via At-Scale Evaluation Using Virtual Emulation Digital Twin Environment for Efficient Operation

The DOE-GTO-funded project, award number 5.1.2.12, entitled "EXERGETIC - De-risking Next Generation Resilient Geothermal Hybrids via at-Scale Evaluation Using a Virtual Emulation Digital Twin Environment for Efficient Operation," advances the solution to these challenges by developing and validating a geothermal co-emulation environment implemented at the National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR)'s Advanced Research on Integrated Energy Systems (ARIES) platform. This framework enables the de-risking of next-generation geothermal and geothermal hybrid systems through high-fidelity modeling, real-time digital emulation, advanced control strategies, and techno-economic assessment. The project focused on geothermal hybrid configurations that integrate geothermal power plants with concentrated solar power and underground thermal energy storage, enabling enhanced efficiency, flexibility, and grid support capabilities. The main goal of this project was the development of a geothermal digital co-emulation environment to demonstrate the technical and economic value of geothermal hybrid systems and their contribution to grid stability and flexibility. The EXERGETIC framework combined physics-based models, controls, and real assets at ARIES, including digital real-time simulators (DRTS), a 20-MW-scale controllable grid interface (CGI), and a 2-MW conventional generator. Detailed transient models were developed for the key subsystems of a hybrid geothermal plant, including parabolic trough solar collectors, reservoir thermal energy storage (RTES), and a binary Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) power plant. The ORC model explicitly captured thermal inertia and off-design operation and integrated control strategies to dynamically respond to electric load profiles. The models were validated against published experimental and numerical studies, demonstrating strong agreement and confirming the accuracy and robustness of the modeling approach. The resulting digital twin represents geothermal-solar-storage systems at multiple scales (1 MW to 100 MW) and enables realistic emulation of grid-connected operation. The control architecture allows the geothermal resource to provide stable baseload generation, while solar and stored thermal energy supply flexible, dispatchable support during periods of high demand or variable grid conditions. A key contribution of the EXERGETIC project is the demonstration that geothermal hybrid systems can be designed to be active grid assets rather than passive baseload generators. Using the ARIES platform, the digital twin was evaluated under multiple grid scenarios, including load following, voltage support at the distribution level, and frequency response at the transmission level. Results show that hybrid geothermal systems can respond effectively to dynamic grid conditions, providing inertia-like behavior, primary frequency support, and voltage regulation through coordinated control. In addition to the performance and grid services capability analysis of geothermal and hybrid geothermal systems, the EXERGETIC project also focused on scalability and techno-economic analysis of geothermal hybrid plants. In particular, for the scalability analysis, machine-learning (ML)-based surrogate models were trained using data generated from the geothermal digital twin under different grid-connected scenarios and plant capacities. These ML models demonstrated strong interpolation and extrapolation capabilities across plant sizes, accurately reproducing both steady-state and transient responses with very low errors. Regarding the techno-economic analysis, plant performance results were integrated with cost models for hybrid geothermal systems, and the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) was used as the main economic metric to evaluate system performance across a range of system capacities, solar shares, solar multiples, and storage durations. Results indicate that economies of scale significantly reduce geothermal LCOE as plant capacity increases, with large-scale systems (25-100 MW) achieving substantially lower costs than small plants. Hybridization with solar thermal energy and storage further improves economic performance by increasing capacity utilization and enabling flexible dispatch. In addition, thermal storage plays a critical role in reducing LCOE by maximizing geothermal, solar, and stored energy resources. In summary, the results from this project demonstrate that geothermal hybrid systems represent a promising alternative for increasing the energy conversion efficiency of geothermal technologies, contributing to the preservation of geothermal resources, and supporting the transition of geothermal plants from traditional baseload resources into flexible, resilient, and cost-competitive energy conversion technologies.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗

BUQEYE guide to projection-based emulators in nuclear physics

The BUQEYE collaboration (Bayesian Uncertainty Quantification: Errors in Your effective field theory) presents a pedagogical introduction to projection-based, reduced-order emulators for applications in low-energy nuclear physics. The term emulator refers here to a fast surrogate model capable of reliably approximating high-fidelity models. As the general tools employed by these emulators are not yet well-known in the nuclear physics community, we discuss variational and Galerkin projection methods, emphasize the benefits of offline-online decompositions, and explore how these concepts lead to emulators for bound and scattering systems that enable fast and accurate calculations using many different model parameter sets. We also point to future extensions and applications of these emulators for nuclear physics, guided by the mature field of model (order) reduction. All examples discussed here and more are available as interactive, open-source Python code so that practitioners can readily adapt projection-based emulators for their own work.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

High-Fidelity Dataset Generation for Sensor Anomalies in Power Grids using Hardware-in-the-Loop Testbed

Sensor anomalies in power grids can have significant impacts on the operation of the grid due to the increased reliance of the grid operation on data-driven applications. However, there is a lack of datasets that accurately capture these anomalies as many of the anomalies go undetected using the current bad data detectors. High-fidelity labeled datasets are essential for developing robust applications that can detect and mitigate the impacts of anomalies. In this paper, we propose a hardware-in-the-loop testbed model that can emulate the grid behavior with high-fidelity. This testbed is used to inject anomalies at various levels in the grid architecture and generate labeled datasets. These high-fidelity datasets can be used for development and validation of data-driven applications for detection and mitigation of anomalies in grids and other cyber-physical systems.

Hyder, Burhan↗

Data-driven surrogate modeling of hPIC ion energy-angle distributions for high-dimensional sensitivity analysis of plasma parameters' uncertainty

In this work, we present a data-driven strategy for effective construction of a surrogate model in high-dimensional parameter space for the ion energy-angle distribution (IEAD) output of hPIC simulations of plasma-surface interactions. The methodology is based on a bin-by-bin least-squares fitting of the IEAD in the parameter space. The fitting is performed in a transformed coordinate system to normalize the IEAD, and it employs sparse grids for sampling the parameter space to overcome sampling challenges in high dimensions. The surrogate model is significantly cheaper computationally than direct hPIC simulations yet maintains high fidelity to them, providing a fast emulator for hPIC simulations. Sensitivity analysis based on the surrogate model is utilized to characterize the dependence of the ion impact angle and energy moments on the physical parameters.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗