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All sources NASA NTRS DOE OSTI

DOE OSTI2017

GEECS (Generalized Equipment and Experiment Control System)

GEECS (Generalized Equipment and Experiment Control System) monitors and controls equipment distributed across a network, performs experiments by scanning input variables, and collects and stores various types of data synchronously from devices. Examples of devices include cameras, motors and pressure gauges. GEEKS is based upon LabView graphical object oriented programming (GOOP), allowing for a modular and scalable framework. Data is published for subscription of an arbitrary number of variables over TCP. A secondary framework allows easy development of graphical user interfaces for a combined control of any available devices on the control system without the need of programming knowledge. This allows for rapid integration of GEECS into a wide variety of systems. A database interface provides for devise and process configuration while allowing the user to save large quantities of data to local or network drives.

Gonsalves, Anthony↗

DOE OSTI2020

Load altering attack-tolerant defense strategy for load frequency control system

Cyber attacks are emerging threats to every information-oriented energy management system. By violating the cyber systems, the hacker can disrupt the security and stability due to the strong coupling between the cyber and physical facilities. In this paper, one type of cyber attacks designated as the load altering attack is studied for the power system frequency control, and corresponding defense strategies are proposed to improve the frequency control performance. Considering the difficulty of the application of model-based controller into large-scale power systems, a novel model-free defense framework is for the first time presented. Under this framework, both active defense and passive defense strategies are designed. The former assumes that the defender has the initiative to learn different attack scenarios. Adaptive defense strategies are implemented using the online attack identification information and off-line trained strategy pool. The latter assumes that the defender passively tolerates various attack scenarios via the pre-trained off-line strategy. Both approaches prove to be effective through validation based on the IEEE benchmark systems. The proposed defense framework and defense strategies can be extended to other energy control systems to enhance their attack tolerance capability.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

DOE OSTI2013

Closeout of CRADA JSA 2012S004: Chapter 5, Integrated Control System, of the document of the ESS Conceptual Design Report, publicly available at https://europeanspallationsource.se/accelerator-documents

The integrated control system (ICS) is responsible for the whole ESS machine and facility: accelerator, target, neutron scattering instruments and conventional facilities. This unified approach keeps the costs of development, maintenance and support relatively low. ESS has selected a standardised, field-proven controls framework, the Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System (EPICS), which was originally developed jointly by Argonne and Los Alamos National Laboratories. Complementing this selection are best practices and experience from similar facilities regarding platform standardisation, control system development and device integration and commissioning. The components of ICS include the control system core, the control boxes, the BLED database management system, and the human machine interface. The control system core is a set of systems and tools that make it possible for the control system to provide required data, information and services to engineers, operators, physicists and the facility itself. The core components are the timing system that makes possible clock synchronisation across the facility, the machine protection system (MPS) and the personnel protection system (PPS) that prevent damage to the machine and personnel, and a set of control system services. Control boxes are servers that control a collection of equipment (for example a radio frequency cavity). The integrated control system will include many control boxes that can be assigned to one supplier, such as an internal team, a collaborating institute or a commercial vendor. This approach facilitates a clear division of responsibilities and makes integration much easier. A control box is composed of a standardised hardware platform, components, development tools and services. On the top level, it interfaces with the core control system components (timing, MPS, PPS) and with the human-machine interface. At the bottom, it interfaces with the equipment and parts of the facility through a set of analog and digital signals, real-time control loops and other communication buses. The ICS central data management system is named BLED (beam line element databases). BLED is a set of databases, tools and services that is used to store, manage and access data. It holds vital control system configuration and physics-related (lattice) information about the accelerator, target and instruments. It facilitates control system configuration by bringing together direct input-output controller (IOC) con guration and real-time data from proton and neutron beam line models. BLED also simplifies development and speeds up the code-test-debug cycle. The set of tools that access BLED will be tailored to the needs of different categories of users, such as ESS staff physicists, engineers, and operators; external partner laboratories; and visiting experimental instrument users. The human-machine interface is vital to providing a high-quality experience to ICS users. It encompasses a wide array of devices and software tools, from control room screens to engineer terminal windows; from beam physics data tools to post-mortem data analysis tools. It serves users with a wide range of skills from widely varied backgrounds. The Controls Group is developing a set of user profiles to accommodate this diverse range of use-cases and users.

96 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND PRESERVATION↗

DOE OSTI2021

Method and apparatus for controlling a vehicle including an adaptive cruise control system

Operating a subject vehicle equipped with an adaptive cruise control system includes setting initial states for control parameters, including setting a desired vehicle speed and determining a desired following gap range, wherein the desired following gap range is associated with a lead vehicle. Operation is controlled via the adaptive cruise control system based upon the initial states for the control parameters. Operation also includes monitoring for presence of the lead vehicle. Upon detecting presence of the lead vehicle, an actual following gap is determined between the subject vehicle and the lead vehicle, and the initial states of the control parameters associated with the adaptive cruise control system are adjusted based upon the actual following gap between the subject vehicle and the lead vehicle, and the desired following gap range. Operation is controlled via the adaptive cruise control system based upon the adjusted initial states of the control parameters.

Zhao, Junfeng↗

DOE OSTI2022

Commercial Building Sensors and Controls Systems: Barriers, Drivers, and Costs

Building sensors and controls systems, including building automation systems, consists of the sensor-based devices installed in buildings and the control and automation of those devices. Optimized sensors and controls systems could lead to 29% annual energy savings in commercial buildings and are integral to the growth of grid-interactive efficient buildings. Only 8% of small commercial buildings, however, have installed sensors and controls systems. This is largely due to cost barriers. This work seeks to increase the transparency of system costs and identify specific barriers and drivers for increased adoption. To gather industry insights, the team reached out to building owners, vendors, and contractors and conducted 20 interviews with the goal of collecting cost data and market characteristics regarding building sensors and controls. The qualitative interview data was analyzed using grounded theory to identify overarching concepts, such as barriers, drivers, and future directions on the field. From this analysis, primary barriers were found to be complexity, a lack of knowledge, and money. Primary drivers were found to be the knowledge of data, savings, and remote access. The qualitative cost data was collected in the form of invoices during the interviews. The cost values were used to develop a percentage-based cost stack which identifies the average fraction of the total cost attributed to each category (hardware, software, labor, fees, and taxes). This greater understanding of costs and barriers associated with commercial building sensors and controls systems lays the groundwork for future steps in increasing system adoption, reducing energy consumption, and market transformation.

advanced building controls↗

DOE OSTI2024

Machine learning informed control systems for extrusion printing processes

Systems and methods for controlling a material extrusion device to extrude a filament of an ink are provided. An extrusion printing control system collects from one or more sensors measurements representing an internal state of material extrusion processing during extrusion of the filament. In addition, the system collects an image of the filament as the filament is extruded. The system applies a classifier to the collected image to generate an image-derived state characterizing the filament. Based on the internal state and the image-derived state, the system estimates a derived state using a model. The system determines control parameters using the model to achieve a desired quality of the filament by minimizing a cost function based on the internal state, the image-derived state, the derived state, and constraints of the material extrusion device. Finally, the system provides the control parameters to a controller of the material extrusion device.

Howell, Brian↗

DOE OSTI2016

Progress and plan of KSTAR plasma control system upgrade

The plasma control system (PCS) has been one of essential systems in annual KSTAR plasma campaigns: starting from a single-process version in 2008, extensive upgrades are done through the previous 7 years in order to achieve major goals of KSTAR performance enhancement. Here, major implementations are explained in this paper. In consequences of successive upgrades, the present KSTAR PCS is able to achieve ~48 s of 500 kA plasma pulses with full real-time shaping controls and real-time NB power controls. It has become a huge system capable of dealing with 8 separate categories of algorithms, 26 actuators directly controllable during the shot, and real-time data communication units consisting of +180 analog channels and +600 digital input/outputs through the reflective memory (RFM) network. The next upgrade of the KSTAR PCS is planned in 2015 before the campaign. An overview of the upgrade layout will be given for this paper. The real-time system box is planned to use the CERN MRG-Realtime OS, an ITER-compatible standard operating system. New hardware is developed for faster real-time streaming system for future installations of actuators/diagnostics.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

DOE OSTI2025

Fermilab PIP-II CDS & CM Cryogenic Controls System

Details on Final design for Cryogenic Electrical & Controls System for Fermilab' s next-gen particle accelerator PIP-II. Electrical Controls System includes instrumentation and controls of Cryogenics Distribution System and Cryomodules. Design includes Siemens PCS7 Controls System with 26 Remote IO Rittal Cabinets and 48 Relay Racks for Temperature Readouts, Valve Positioners, Level, Heater Controls etc. Electrical Drawings and Design have been completed with focus now on fabrication of the 26 Rittal Cabinets and 48 Relay Racks. All materials have been procured. EPICS will be used as a SCADA system communicating to S7 Controllers via OPC UA.

Patel, Pratik [Fermilab]↗

DOE OSTI2025

Fermilab PIP-II CDS and CM Cryogenic Controls System

Patel, Pratik [Fermilab]↗

DOE OSTI2023

Commercial Building Sensors and Controls Systems: Barriers and Drivers: Preprint

Building sensors and controls systems, including building automation systems, comprise the sensor-based devices installed in buildings as well as the control and automation of those devices. Optimized sensors and controls systems could lead to 29% annual energy savings in commercial buildings and are integral to the growth of grid-interactive efficient buildings. Only 13% of small commercial buildings, however, have installed sensors and controls systems, largely because of cost barriers. To accelerate adoption, this work seeks to increase the transparency of system costs and identify specific barriers and drivers. To gather industry insights, the team reached out to building owners, vendors, and contractors and conducted 21 interviews with the goal of collecting cost data and market characteristics regarding building sensors and controls. We collected the cost data in the form of invoices and used it to develop a percentage-based cost category breakdown. The interview data were analyzed using grounded theory to identify overarching concepts such as barriers, drivers, and future directions. From this analysis, we found the primary barriers to be complex and confusing systems, lack of user skills, and financial concerns, and the primary drivers to be operational benefits, insight into operations, and remote access to data. The future directions analysis highlighted the potential technological solutions to address gaps and barriers, as well as predicted drivers to increase adoption. This greater understanding of the costs, barriers, and drivers associated with commercial building sensors and controls systems lays the groundwork for increasing system adoption, reducing energy consumption, and transforming the market.

building automation system↗

DOE OSTI2020

The Web as the Primary Control System User Interface

Fermilab's Control System uses a proprietary application framework written decades ago. Considered state-ofthe- art at one time, the control system now lacks many features we expect from a modern interface and needs to be updated. Our investigation of Web browsers and JavaScript revealed a powerful, rich, and state-of-the-art development environment. We discuss JavaScript frameworks, JavaScript language features, and packaging tools. We also discuss issues we need to resolve before we are confident this can become our primary application platform.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

DOE OSTI2014

Controlled transitions between cupolets of chaotic systems

We present an efficient control scheme that stabilizes the unstable periodic orbits of a chaotic system. The resulting orbits are known as cupolets and collectively provide an important skeleton for the dynamical system. Cupolets exhibit the interesting property that a given sequence of controls will uniquely identify a cupolet, regardless of the system's initial state. This makes it possible to transition between cupolets, and thus unstable periodic orbits, simply by switching control sequences. We demonstrate that although these transitions require minimal controls, they may also involve significant chaotic transients unless carefully controlled. As a result, we present an effective technique that relies on Dijkstra's shortest path algorithm from algebraic graph theory to minimize the transients and also to induce certainty into the control of nonlinear systems, effectively providing an efficient algorithm for the steering and targeting of chaotic systems.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

DOE OSTI2014

Control system and method for a universal power conditioning system

A new current loop control system method is proposed for a single-phase grid-tie power conditioning system that can be used under a standalone or a grid-tie mode. This type of inverter utilizes an inductor-capacitor-inductor (LCL) filter as the interface in between inverter and the utility grid. The first set of inductor-capacitor (LC) can be used in the standalone mode, and the complete LCL can be used for the grid-tie mode. A new admittance compensation technique is proposed for the controller design to avoid low stability margin while maintaining sufficient gain at the fundamental frequency. The proposed current loop controller system and admittance compensation technique have been simulated and tested. Simulation results indicate that without the admittance path compensation, the current loop controller output duty cycle is largely offset by an undesired admittance path. At the initial simulation cycle, the power flow may be erratically fed back to the inverter causing catastrophic failure. With admittance path compensation, the output power shows a steady-state offset that matches the design value. Experimental results show that the inverter is capable of both a standalone and a grid-tie connection mode using the LCL filter configuration.

42 ENGINEERING↗

DOE OSTI2021

Portable Industrial Control Systems Simulator (Final Report)

Industrial Control Systems (ICS) are more integrated than they have ever been before, but also the division between IT (Information Technology) and OT (Operational Technology) is becoming a grey area. As the integration of IT and OT occurs more often, cyber attack will also increase. Cyber attacks on Critical Infrastructure can be highly detrimental to society, notably via compromised Industrial Control Systems (ICS). Virtual and physical simulation has been used in medical fields, mathematics, architecture, aeronautics, space, and many more. Virtualization & Simulation in a lab environment is ideal because there is a need for the ability to test theories and designs is a safe and cost-effective way without risking equipment damage or, more importantly, human life. Furthermore, OT and ICS are some of the most difficult systems to use for research and development. They are either committed to operations or widely expensive to set up in a life-like environment. Virtualization and simulation will allow these otherwise accessible systems to be a test bed for the training, development, and research of SRNL customers or engineers and scientists at SRNL. This will allow the testbed to fit into a small form factor and interact with a simulator with minimum hardware components for easy transports and replication effort within the environment.

42 ENGINEERING↗

DOE OSTI2017

Enabling co-simulation of tokamak plant models and plasma control systems

A system for connecting the Plasma Control System and a model of the tokamak Plant in closed loop co-simulation for plasma control development has been in routine use at DIII-D for more than 20 years and at other fusion labs that use variants of the DIII-D PCS for approximately the last decade. Here, co-simulation refers to the simultaneous execution of two independent codes with the exchange of data - Plant actuator commands and tokamak diagnostic data - between them during execution. Interest in this type of PCS-Plant simulation technology has also been growing recently at other fusion facilities. In fact, use of such closed loop control simulations is assumed to play an even larger role in the development of both the ITER Plasma Control System (PCS) and the experimental operation of the ITER device, where they will be used to support verification/validation of the PCS and also for ITER pulse schedule development and validation. We describe the key use cases that motivate the co-simulation capability and the features that must be provided by the Plasma Control System to support it. These features could be provided by the PCS itself or by a model of the PCS. If the PCS itself is chosen to provide them, there are requirements imposed on its architecture. If a PCS model is chosen, there are requirements imposed on the initial implementation of this simulation as well as long-term consequences for its continued development and maintenance. We describe these issues for each use case and discuss the relative merits of the two choices. Several examples are given illustrating uses of the co-simulation method to address problems of plasma control during the operation of DIII-D and of other devices that use the DIII-D PCS.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

DOE OSTI2016

Control and automation of the Pegasus multi-point Thomson scattering system

A new control system for the Pegasus Thomson scattering diagnostic has recently been deployed to automate the laser operation, data collection process, and interface with the system-wide Pegasus control code. Automation has been extended to areas outside of data collection, such as manipulation of beamline cameras and remotely controlled turning mirror actuators to enable intra-shot beam alignment. Additionally, the system has been upgraded with a set of fast (∼1 ms) mechanical shutters to mitigate contamination from background light. Modification and automation of the Thomson system have improved both data quality and diagnostic reliability.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

DOE OSTI2017

Demonstrating Hybrid Heat Transport and Energy Conversion System Performance Characterization Using Intelligent Control Systems

The debate continues on the magnitude and validity of climate change caused by human activities. However, there is no debate about the need to make buildings, modes of transportation, factories, and homes as energy efficient as possible. Given that climate change could occur with the wasteful use of fossil fuel and the fact that fossil energy costs could and will swing wildly, it is imperative that every effort be made to utilize energy sources to their fullest. Hybrid energy systems (HES) are two or more separate energy producers used together to produce energy commodities. The HES this report focuses on is the use of nuclear reactor waste heat as a source of further energy utilization. Nuclear reactors use a fluid to cool the core and produce the steam needed for the production of electricity. Traditionally this steam, or coolant, is used to convert the energy then cooled elsewhere. The heat is released into the environment without being used further. By adding technologies to nuclear reactors to use the wasted heat, a system can be developed to make more than just electricity and allow for loading following capabilities.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

DOE OSTI2019

Industrial Control System Risk

Risk is integrated into all business processes, and leaders work to limit risk to as low as reasonable within their systems. Within Industrial Control System networks, risk is especially challenging due to the second- and third-order effects that an attack can incur. We present a new equation for risk and analyze its appropriateness in determining risk through Monte Carlo methods. We believe that this new equation has merit in allowing leadership to more quickly access and mitigate risk based off factors within the decision maker’s control, understanding how capable an attacker may be, how much impact an attack would have on the system, and how intensely an attacker may want to cause damage to the system. These variables will allow a leader to provide strategic vision to the business that he/she leads.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗