Timothy McIntyre

Minimum state awareness for resilient control systems under cyber-attack

State awareness for a control system is the accurate knowledge of the internal states of the system realization. By definition, a cyber-attacker decreases the state awareness by modifying or removing the information available to the operator and control system. By decreasing state awareness, the attacker can directly cause damage to the physical system through the control system, or indirectly by causing the operator to react in a damaging manner to the false information. One of the central problems of resilient control is developing methods to retain the minimal state awareness necessary to continue stable operation during a cyber-attack. The characterization of the necessary minimal state awareness is currently an unanswered question. In this paper, we will define state awareness, discuss the consequences of loss of state awareness, and some potential research directions for maintaining state awareness.

Noise Radar Approach for Interrogating SAW Sensors Using Software Defined Radio

Passive, wireless surface acoustic wave (SAW) sensor systems can be approached from a radar perspective, where the SAW device is thought of as a cooperative target. This paper investigates the use of a commercial-off-the-shelf software defined radio to interrogate wireless SAW sensors with a randomly generated interrogation pulse. The USRP B200mini is utilized as the transceiver platform with custom field-programmable gate array (FPGA) modifications to generate the random interrogation waveform and provide synchronization and buffering to the received signal. Each transmit sample bit in the FPGA is fed by an independent linear-feedback shift register, which generates pseudo-random I and Q samples for the interrogation pulse. An RF daughterboard has also been developed and integrated with the B200mini to increase the transmit power, provide filtering of the RF signals, and switch a signal antenna between the transmit and receive channels. Radio control and matched filter correlator post-processing are accomplished using Python. Design and implementation details for the FPGA modifications, RF daughterboard, and post-processing are discussed. The system is demonstrated by wirelessly interrogating SAW temperature sensors at 915 MHz.

Design of a multisensory probe for measuring carbon cycle processes in aqueous subterranean environments

The global carbon cycle describes the exchange of carbon between the atmosphere, terrestrial vegetation, oceans, and soil. Mechanisms involving carbon in sub-terrestrial ecosystems and their impact on climate are not well understood. This lack of understanding limits current climate models and prevents accurate soil-carbon storage predications for future climate conditions. To address the lack of instrumentation for conducting high fidelity measurements of appropriate parameters in the field, a multi-sensory probe using a mix of optical, fiber optic, and electronic technologies to measure CO2, temperature, dissolved oxygen, redox potential, and water level in subsurface environments has been developed. Details of the design, fabrication and laboratory performance verification are presented. Use cases and the anticipated impacts of such measurements on climate models are discussed.

Design and implementation of a Hall Effect sensor array applied to recycling hard drive magnets

Rare earths are an important resource for many electronic components and technologies. Examples abound including Neodymium magnets used in mobile devices and computer hard disk drives (HDDs) and in a variety of renewable energy technologies (e.g, wind turbines). More than 23,000 metric tons of Neodymium are processed annually; less than 1% is recycled. An economic system to assist in recycling magnet material from post-consumer goods, such as neodymium iron boron magnets commonly found in HDDs, is presented. A central component of this recycling measurement system uses an array of 128 Hall Effect sensors arranged in two columns to detect the magnetic flux lines orthogonal to the HDD. Results found using the system to scan planar shaped objects (e.g, HDDs) to identify and spatially locate rare earth magnets for removal and recycling from HDDs are presented. Other applications of the sensor array for identification and localization of magnetic components and assemblies are presented.

Supply Chain Based Solution to Prevent Fuel Tax Evasion: Proof of Concept Final Report

The goal of this research was to provide a proof-of-concept (POC) system for preventing non-taxable (non-highway diesel use) or low-taxable (jet fuel) petrochemical products from being blended with taxable fuel products and preventing taxable fuel products from cross-jurisdiction evasion. The research worked to fill the need to validate the legitimacy of individual loads, offloads, and movements by integrating and validating, on a near-real-time basis, information from global positioning system (GPS), valve sensors, level sensors, and fuel-marker sensors.

Wireless sensors and energy efficiency at Alcoa

Inexpensive wireless sensors developed under a DOE Building Technology Program (BTP) project have proven to be robust enough for harsher environmental and RF interference-laden locations found in industrial settings. Coupling with Alcoa-ORNL activities pertaining to optimization of energy utilization at Alcoa facilities these sensors, and an associated ORNL-architected instrumentation network fabric, were selected for deployment at an Alcoa facility in Warrick Indiana - on the banks of the Ohio River. The Warrick facility was chosen as the demonstration site principally for the fact that a 750MW power plant, a rolling mill and a smelter system are all coresident at this location. This paper presents a description of that deployment at Alcoas Warrick IN facility as well as Alcoas vision for implementing inexpensive, standards-based wireless devices for reducing energy consumption.