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At least 109 records · Page 6

Anomaly Detection and Mitigation for Dynamic Frequency Regulation in Hydropower-Battery Systems: Preprint

Hydropower operators and energy storage providers are increasingly interested in participating in frequency regulation services, driven by the incentives offered by independent system operators, such as the Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland Interconnection (PJM), in a competitive electricity market. This transition, however, unfolds against the backdrop of a modernizing and rapidly digitizing power grid, exposing the integrated legacy infrastructure and vulnerable communication networks to a multitude of cybersecurity threats. These evolving threats not only endanger grid operations but also have the potential to trigger cascading disruptions across the broader grid network and influence regulation markets. This work presents an approach for developing an anomaly detection and mitigation system to address cybersecurity challenges during the participation of a hydropower-integrated battery energy storage system (BESS) in a frequency regulation market. The applied anomaly detector utilizes machine learning algorithms to provide detailed classification of cyber-physical events and provide a comprehensive situation awareness to grid operators. Later, the applied mitigation system triggers predefined corrective actions to minimize the impact of data integrity attacks on the regulation market and system stability. We evaluated the proposed approach on a fully active BESS topology using the slow regulation signal (Reg A) coming from the PJM market. Our simulation results reveal that the proposed approach performs well in detecting data integrity attacks within the allocated time frame and also minimizes the system's instability and economic loss during the participation of hydropower and BESS in the regulation market.

battery energy storage system↗

Scenario Generation for Built Environment Decision Support under Uncertainty: Case Studies of Airflow Modeling and Climate-Resilient Infrastructure System Design

When confronted with unforeseen challenges, practicing informed decision making is crucial for enhancing resilience in the built environment. While scan-to-building information modeling (BIM) is a well-established approach for creating detailed digital representations of physical assets, its application in assessing and improving infrastructure resilience remains underexplored. This study addresses this gap by proposing a novel application of scan-to-BIM, namely, scan-to-BIM-to-digital twin (S-BIM-DT) workflow. By integrating reality capture and digital twin technologies, this workflow creates continuously updated and accurate digital representations of physical assets, enabling the generation of various scenarios. Unlike traditional methods, the S BIM-DT workflow facilitates continuous model refinement, supporting informed resilience strategies. By combining these technologies into a cohesive process, the workflow facilitates decision making under uncertainty, enabling stakeholders to evaluate and respond to various scenarios effectively. We demonstrate the implementation of the S-BIM-DT workflow through two use cases that highlight its capability to enhance resilience at different scales. The first use case involves the Combined Transportation, Emergency, and Communications Center (CTECC) in Austin, Texas. BIM-enriched computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling simulates airflow and develops alternative scenarios for optimizing the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. This approach enhances resilience against airborne health threats in a postCOVID context. The second use case focuses on designated areas within Beaumont, Texas, as part of the Southeast Texas Urban Integrated Field Laboratory (SETx-UIFL) research. By developing inundation maps to assess extreme weather events, this modeling aids in preparedness efforts and informs the development of climate-resilient infrastructure in vulnerable neighborhoods. Results indicate that the S-BIM-DT workflow effectively generates scenarios that enhance resilience in the built environment by facilitating informed decision making. Furthermore, this study serves as a bridge between advanced scan-to-BIM methodologies and the practical strategies needed to improve built infrastructure resilience.

Built environment↗

Securing the Modern Grid: Federal Investments, Digitization, and Supply Chain Strategy

Across the United States (U.S.) grid expansion and modernization is underway, paving the way for accelerated load growth and intelligent resource management. Digitization of the grid is supported by several state and federal programs, providing support for utilities installing advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), AI-powered analytics systems, battery energy storage systems (BESS), and distributed energy resource management systems (DERMS) to transform the grid from a one-way power delivery system into an intelligent, responsive network that will enable faster load growth and power expansion of data centers for advanced artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The digital transformation of America's grid presents opportunity for increased efficiency and resiliency but also introduces new digital risks that require careful management. Digital equipment often contains several vulnerabilities such as unencrypted communication protocols, and persistent remote access capabilities that could be exploited to manipulate device settings, coordinate service disruptions, or inject false data into grid operations. These digital risks become particularly important as the grid must rapidly scale to support AI-driven data centers, which the administration has identified as essential for maintaining U.S. technological leadership and economic competitiveness. These vulnerabilities are compounded by supply chain realities: Chinese manufacturers currently produce 70-90% of essential grid components including inverters, batteries, and control systems, with the U.S. lacking domestic manufacturing capacity for critical assets like extra-high voltage transformers. Recent federal legislation has established Foreign Entity of Concern (FEOC) restrictions to address these risks, requiring projects to achieve escalating thresholds of non-FEOC content to receive tax credits while utilities work to expand sourcing channels for their supply chains and strengthen security measures. These restrictions arrive precisely when utilities face unprecedented electricity demand growth driven by the rapid growth in data centers, creating a considerable challenge: rapidly expanding infrastructure while navigating complex compliance requirements while lacking viable alternatives for many critical components. Idaho National Laboratory (INL) and its partners have developed practical approaches to help utilities navigate these intersecting challenges as they leverage federal investment to strengthen and grow the grid. These solutions include Cyber-Informed Engineering (CIE) principles that build resilience directly into systems, the Cirrus tool for secure cloud migration, and enhanced procurement guidance that embeds security requirements throughout equipment lifecycles. Federal initiatives, such as the Technical Assistance for Digital Assurance (TADA) project, provide direct support to utilities implementing these approaches while facilitating knowledge sharing across the industry. While these tools and frameworks cannot eliminate all risks inherent in foreign supply chain dependencies, they offer pragmatic pathways for strengthening security posture without sacrificing the deployment momentum essential to meeting surging electricity demand. Ultimately, securing America's digital energy infrastructure demands dedicated coordination across multiple fronts: building domestic supply chains, implementing robust digital assurance practices, and maintaining the aggressive modernization timeline necessary for reliability, resilience, and energy independence.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

Sentinel Devices LLC (CRADA Final Report)

Industrial equipment is a critical component of virtually all at-scale manufacturing and infrastructure. Broadly speaking, modern equipment is predominantly controlled using hardened digital controllers – computers designed to be able to operate continuously for sometimes extremely long periods of time, with little to no maintenance. Due to the nature of how these digital controllers have evolved, they are solely optimized to execute a single task, and do not have the capabilities or resources to monitor or analyze their internal state beyond simple execution of their program. As a result, for many “common sense” situations where individual data points can be easily determined to be out-of-normal, the controllers are unable to identify these incorrect operational modes unless a human has explicitly programmed in detection of this degradation. This project seeks to develop an AI/ML system which can identify incorrect or anomalous trends in industrial data streams, of exactly the kind that would be produced and seen by these digital controllers, with a minimal amount of computing resources. The benefits produced by developing this system would ultimately be self-monitoring and self-reporting infrastructure, capable of identifying and alerting humans to issues as soon as they happen, potentially long before they have the chance to impact the industrial process.

42 ENGINEERING↗

FAIR Ecosystems for Science at Scale

High Performance Computing (HPC) centers provide resources to users who require greater scale to “get science done”. They deploy infrastructure with singular hardware architectures, cutting-edge software environments, and stricter security measures as compared with users’ own resources. As a result, users often create and configure digital artifacts in ways that are specialized for the unique infrastructure at a given HPC center. Each user of that center will face similar challenges as they develop specialized solutions to take full advantages of the center’s resources, potentially resulting in significant duplication of effort. Much duplicated effort could be avoided, however, if users of these centers found it easier to discover others’ solutions and artifacts as well as share their own. The FAIR principles address this problem by presenting guidelines focused around metadata practices to be implemented by vaguely defined “communities”; in practice, these tend to gather by domain (e.g. bioinformatics, geosciences, agriculture). Domain-based communities can unfortunately end up functioning as silos that tend both to inhibit sharing of solutions and best practices as well as to encourage fragile and unsustainable improvised solutions in the absence of best-practice guidance. We propose that these communities pursuing “science at scale” be nurtured both individually and collectively by HPC centers so that users can take advantage of shared challenges across disciplines and potentially across HPC centers. We describe an architecture based on the EOSC-Life FAIR Workflows Collaboratory, specialized for use with and inside HPC centers such as the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF), and we speculate on user incentives to encourage adoption. We note that a focus on FAIR workflow components rather than FAIR workflows is more likely to benefit the users of HPC centers.

Wilkinson, Sean [ORNL] (ORCID:0000000214437479)↗

Adapting Digital Libraries to Continual Evolution

In this paper, we describe five investment streams (data storage infrastructure, knowledge management, data production control, data transport and security, and personnel skill mix) that need to be balanced against short-term operating demands in order to maximize the probability of long-term viability of a digital library. Because of the rapid pace of information technology change, a digital library cannot be a static institution. Rather, it has to become a flexible organization adapted to continuous evolution of its infrastructure.

Barkstrom, Bruce R.↗

A Comparative Analysis of Infrastructure-Based Perception Sensors for Intelligent Transportation Systems

The rise of privatized and public investment in smart city infrastructure and intelligent transportation systems has generated a heightened demand for perception sensors that effectively track and detect objects while being reliable in diverse weather and lighting conditions. This growing demand for perception sensors has accelerated their development and enhanced their capabilities. With these new capabilities, it is challenging to determine the most suitable sensing unit to use in each situation. Therefore, it is essential to have a comprehensive understanding of the benefits and limitations of each sensing unit to effectively leverage their capabilities. The purpose of this paper is to provide a detailed evaluation of various perception sensors. Additionally, this paper will demonstrate the benefits of combining multiple perception sensors, which complement each other by addressing data gaps inherent to single-sensor systems, to facilitate the creation of a digital twin that models the real world. The Infrastructure, Perception, and Control (IPC) team will conduct data analysis using data collected through field testing at traffic intersections in Colorado Springs, Colorado, to make comparisons between sensors. This research aims to provide clear and concise information about modern perception systems, which will support the development of intelligent transportation systems.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

Synthetic Digital Environments for Training Robots on Earth & Beyond [Poster]

Creating physical replicas of real-world environments to train robots for challenging outdoor tasks, whether constructing energy infrastructure like solar farms on Earth or on the Moon and Mars, is prohibitively expensive. This project will prototype a high-fidelity digital twin framework using NVIDIA IsaacSim to create realistic digital representations of robotic systems and their operating conditions, including varied terrains and environmental factors, allowing robots to learn and adapt in a faster, safer, and more affordable way to tackle unpredictable challenges in terrestrial and extraterrestrial applications. The Robotic Space Exploration (RoSE) Lab at Colorado School of Mines focused on the development and testing of synthetic digital twins to explore multi-physics interactions between robots and unstructured environments, with emphasis on lunar conditions such as deformable regolith, reduced gravity, and terrain-robot contact dynamics. The Industrialized Construction Innovation (ICI) team at National laboratory of the Rockies (NLR), simulated robotic apparatus and construction workflows using synthetic digital twins to inform real-world deployment, targeting application-driven use cases such as robotic construction of a scaled prototype of a photovoltaic energy infrastructure. Joint efforts between RoSE and ICI are continuing to explore how environment-scale multi-physics modeling and application-level robotic system simulation could be integrated to support robotic construction of energy infrastructure in highly unstructured environments, including scenarios relevant to the Lunar South Pole.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

Cooperative Automated Cohort Driving on Connected Infrastructure, Arterial Roadways, and Highways: Final Project Demonstration and System-of-Systems Model Correlation

This project seeks to synergize vehicle automated driving and connectivity data to improve mobility and energy efficiency of groups of mixed vehicles operating in close proximity (vehicle cohort) on various infrastructure. A custom cellular communication network links vehicles operating as a cohort with infrastructure to a centralized system-of-systems digital twin with an AI-based optimal behavior planner. The data contained in this set are from final testing and technology demonstrations to U.S. Department of Energy staff at the American Center for Mobility. The data contain single-lane, single-light scenarios; multi-lane, multi-light arterial scenarios; and limited-access highway scenarios. All test cases were derived from simulations and replicated on the test track. The project employed two and four light-duty vehicles with connectivity and drive automation for the testing. The baseline scenario without connectivity was run under the control of the system-of-systems centralized planner but operating each vehicle with an intelligent driver model controlling the velocity, lane utilization, and vehicle gap. This was to ensure the highest compatibility with the simulation in terms of dynamic behavior. The connected cohort case utilized AI optimization to perform coordinated and cooperative control for energy, as well as safe, comfortable behavior for the cohort. The dataset is appropriately named with unconnected and connected designations, with comparisons sharing the same run index number. The included PowerPoint and PDF files describe the test setup and provide an overview of results from the project. ![image](de-EE0009209_March_2023_Data_Arterial_Scenario_Results.png)

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

The Role of Timing in Industrial Control Systems: A Primer

Accurate and synchronized time is an important dependency within an industrial control system. Manipulation or degradation of timing can result in varying impacts based on the critical infrastructure sector. As control systems continue to be digitized and automated, they require more precise timing elements which increases the potential impact of a cyber-attack on timing elements.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

Potential markets for advanced satellite communications

This report identifies trends in the volume and type of traffic offered to the U.S. domestic communications infrastructure and extrapolates these trends through the year 2011. To describe how telecommunications service providers are adapting to the identified trends, this report assesses the status, plans, and capacity of the domestic communications infrastructure. Cable, satellite, and radio components of the infrastructure are examined separately. The report also assesses the following major applications making use of the infrastructure: (1) Broadband services, including Broadband Integrated Services Digital Network (BISDN), Switched Multimegabit Data Service (SMDS), and frame relay; (2) mobile services, including voice, location, and paging; (3) Very Small Aperture Terminals (VSAT), including mesh VSAT; and (4) Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS) for audio and video. The report associates satellite implementation of specific applications with market segments appropriate to their features and capabilities. The volume and dollar value of these market segments are estimated. For the satellite applications able to address the needs of significant market segments, the report also examines the potential of each satellite-based application to capture business from alternative technologies.

Adamson, Steven↗

IMT-2000 Satellite Standards with Applications to Mobile Air Traffic Communications Networks

The International Mobile Telecommunications - 2000 (IMT-2000) standard and more specifically the Satellite component of it, is investigated as a potential alternative for communications to aircraft mobile users en-route and in terminal area. Its application to Air Traffic Management (ATM) communication needs is considered. A summary of the specifications of IMT-2000 satellite standards are outlined. It is shown via a system research analysis that it is possible to support most air traffic communication needs via an IMT-2000 infrastructure. This technology can compliment existing, or future digital aeronautical communications technologies such as VDL2, VDL3, Mode S, and UAT.

Shamma, Mohammed A.↗

Cyber-Informed Engineering: Standards Development Organization Quick Start Guide

Cyber-Informed Engineering (CIE) is an emerging methodology focused on identifying and reducing high-consequence events that may affect physical critical infrastructure systems as a result of their dependence on digital technology. CIE, developed by National Laboratories and promoted by the Department of Energy (DOE), incorporates consequence-focused planning into the design and engineering process from the earliest stages of a project. This guide provides a concise overview of CIE and offers practical insight into how Standards Development Organizations (SDOs) can interpret CIE principles and apply those concepts in updates to various standards. It is important to remember that CIE extends beyond a compliance checklist, emphasizing a broader, interpretive approach. Instead, it encourages an interpretive mindset - a "turning of 'what if' to 'even if'" approach that anticipates and engineers out high-consequence events. The authors encourage SDOs to establish and promote CIE principles as enhancements for more resilient-by-design outcomes across critical infrastructure energy sectors. The 12 core principles of CIE outline specific behaviors and actions that SDOs and engineers may adopt to enhance system resilience. This guide applies these principles in a manner intended to be relevant across various technologies and threat landscapes. We welcome institutions and vendors to identify new or different framework alignments and mappings as we collectively work towards a safer and more reliable digital landscape.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

CIE Curriculum Guide (V.2.0)

The Cyber-Informed Engineering (CIE) Curriculum Guide offers a comprehensive framework, guidance, and resources for integrating CIE into university-level engineering programs and related educational activities. The primary goal is to help educators adopt CIE principles into their teaching to produce future engineers and technicians who understand digital risks in modern engineered systems, thereby addressing the nation’s infrastructure resilience needs. This guide outlines practical integration examples, links to resources to accelerate CIE adoption, and shares insights from partner academic institutions on various implementation strategies. CIE is a framework for embedding engineered controls that mitigate the impact of cyber-attacks in any cyber-physical system used in critical energy infrastructure and other sectors. Developed by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER), the National Cyber-Informed Engineering Strategy emphasizes embedding CIE into formal education, training, and credentialing. This guide supports this strategic objective by providing examples of integrating CIE concepts into engineering curricula, from class activities to new courses and certificate programs. The importance of educating cyber-informed engineers is underscored by the evolving cybersecurity threats facing engineered systems. As industrial control systems (ICS) increasingly incorporate digital technologies, the responsibility for security extends to both cyber professionals and engineers. CIE addresses critical gaps in designing and protecting physical systems with digital components against cyber risks, ensuring engineers consider digital risk throughout the engineering design lifecycle. Currently, engineering education does not routinely include cyber-informed principles, highlighting a gap in addressing modern engineering system risks. This guide advocates for updating engineering curricula to include digital risk management as a fundamental element. By doing so, future engineers will be equipped to design resilient systems that mitigate digital risks from the outset. Through this guide, engineering faculty can integrate CIE into their curricula, bridging the gap between digital risk and engineering. This approach prepares a cyber-informed workforce capable of safeguarding the cyber-physical systems crucial to national security and public welfare. By embedding CIE into education and training, institutions can produce engineers and technicians who can effectively mitigate cyber impacts throughout the engineering design lifecycle, resulting in more secure critical infrastructures.

42 - ENGINEERING↗

Digital Twinning and Predictive Modeling of Traffic for Safe, Efficient, and Reliable Intersections

Over the last decade, the advances in connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs) have far surpassed the technological realm of transportation infrastructure. There is a growing need to have a technologically commensurate transportation infrastructure to enable safe and reliable movement of goods and people. The recent creation of Advanced Research Projects Agency - Infrastructure (ARPA-I) through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act by the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) has further amplified the need to revolutionize the transportation infrastructure system in the US. This need is perhaps felt most at traffic intersections, as more than 50 percent of the combined total of fatal and injury crashes occur at or near intersections. The proposed concept of Infrastructure Perception and Control (IPC) is aimed at bridging this technological gap by building a real-time digital twin of traffic by fusing detections from sensors installed at the intersection. This digital twin can then empower a wide variety of applications such as smart traffic signals or infrastructure-to-everything (I2X) communications. Smart signaling can help avoid crashes through early-prediction, while I2X can augment the CAV sensors under uncertain driving conditions and provide connected vehicles (CVs) with traffic information they can use to optimize their travel.

connected vehicles↗

Data Centers and Digital Assurance Workshop 3 – Mitigations for Digital Assurance Risks

The third session of the TADA (Technical Assistance for Digital Assurance) Data Centers Cohort, held on November 18, 2025, focused on developing mitigation strategies for digital assurance risks identified in previous workshops. Hosted by Idaho National Laboratory (INL) and ScottMadden, the session emphasized the application of Cyber-Informed Engineering (CIE) to data center infrastructure, particularly at the utility–data center interface. Participants revisited and ranked key digital assurance risks, including architecture and interface weaknesses, governance gaps, and AI-enabled threats. The workshop introduced the 12 principles of CIE, advocating for consequence-focused design, engineered controls, and secure information architecture to proactively reduce cyber-physical vulnerabilities. These principles were applied to critical data center systems such as power distribution, UPS, cooling, SCADA/BMS, and grid-forming batteries. The session also addressed governance challenges at the interconnection boundary, highlighting the need for clear roles in telemetry sharing, firmware management, and trip settings. Special attention was given to emerging risks from behind-the-meter (BTM) generation, including reverse-power flow and the integration of small modular reactors (SMRs), which shift data centers from large loads to complex generation nodes. Participants explored how interconnection agreements can serve as enforceable instruments for digital assurance, and reviewed gaps in current standards such as NERC CIP, IEC 62443, and IEEE 1547. The workshop concluded with pathways to standardization, including model agreement language, state-level programs, and expanded NERC guidance. INL also presented tools and frameworks for secure procurement and supplier risk management, reinforcing the need for integrated engineering and policy solutions to secure the evolving data center–grid ecosystem. Session 3 of 3.

24 - POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

Mobiliti v1.0

Mobiliti is a software platform designed to emulate the dynamics of a regional transportation road network. It is built on open-source software that provides parallel discrete-event simulation. The software is transformative in the area of transportation network simulation because of the geospatial scale and fidelity of the network model and the computational time it takes to model a full day of travel demand. For example, it runs a simulation of the entire San Francisco Bay Area, with a network model of ~1M links and a population that completes ~19M trips in ~5 minutes. This scale of simulation has not been attempted with existing simulation models due to the complexity of the model and the computational time it would take to complete. The intent of the software is to create a digital twin capability for cities to evaluate consequences of infrastructure or policy changes on road network dynamics.

Macfarlane, Jane↗

Bridging the Gap from Networking Technologies to Applications: Workshop Report

The objective of the Next Generation Internet (NGI) Federal program is threefold, encompassing development of networking technologies, high-performance network testbeds, and revolutionary applications. There have been notable advances in emerging network technologies and several nationwide testbeds have been established, but the integration of emerging technologies into applications is lagging. To help bridge this gap between developers of NGI networking technologies and developers of NGI applications, the NASA Research and Education Network (NREN) project hosted a two-day workshop at NASA Ames Research Center in August 1999. This paper presents a summary of the results of this workshop and also describes some of the challenges NREN is facing while incorporating new technologies into HPCC and other NASA applications. The workshop focused on three technologies - Quality of Service (QoS), advanced multicast, and security-and five major NGI application areas - telemedicine, digital earth, digital video, distributed data-intensive applications, and computational infrastructure applications. Network technology experts, application developers, and NGI testbed representatives came together at the workshop to promote cross-fertilization between the groups. Presentations on the first day, including an overview of the three technologies, application case studies and testbed status reports, laid the foundation for discussions on the second day. The objective of these latter discussions, held within smaller breakout groups, was to establish a coherent picture of the current status of the various pieces of each of the three technologies, to create a roadmap outlining future technology development, and to offer technological guidance to application developers. In this paper we first present a brief overview of the NGI applications that were represented at the workshop, focusing on the identification of technological advances that have successfully been incorporated in each application and technological challenges that remain. Next we present the technology roadmaps that were created at the workshop, summarizing the status of various mechanisms that are currently under development and forecasting when various advances are likely to occur within the next one-to-three-year time span. Then we identify issues that were raised at the workshop that might hinder technology development or that might impede integration into NGI applications. We also report some specific guidelines that were offered at the workshop to enable application developers to integrate and effectively use emerging NGI technology building blocks. Finally, we describe NREN activities to incorporate emerging technologies into NASA applications. These activities include support for other NASA High-Performance Computing and Communications Program areas such as IPG (Information Power Grid), support for NASA science enterprises such as Earth science and Mars program prototyping activities, support for satellite/terrestrial networking applications such as the TransAtlantic and TransPacific demonstrations and the Interplanetary Internet, support for NASA telemedicine applications such as the Virtual Collaborative Clinic, and participation in NGI advanced technology testbed initiatives such as the QBone and the NTON/Supernet. For each activity we highlight the primary technological challenge that is associated with it.

Johnson, Marjory J.↗