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Fully Homomorphic Encryption

This code implements a Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) system, enabling secure computation on encrypted data without requiring decryption. It supports encryption, decryption, and homomorphic operations like matrix multiplication and addition. This code is adaptable for integrating FHE into linear-time invariant (LTI) systems, including digital control and filtering. With proper configuration from subject matter expertise, encrypted system parameters and signals can be manipulated to perform tasks like state updates, output calculations, and convolution in the encrypted domain. By preserving the structure of LTI systems while ensuring privacy, the framework facilitates secure applications in areas such as autonomous systems, signal processing, and industrial automation. The code initializes the encryption system using parameters provided in the env dictionary. These parameters include the ciphertext modulus, key dimension, plaintext fixed-point scaling factor, and noise bound. During initialization, a secret key is generated, which is essential for encrypting and decrypting data securely. The modular design allows users to tailor these parameters to specific use cases or security requirements. The code implements multiple cryptographic schemes. The learning with errors (LWE) encryption method encodes cleartext message to their plaintext fixed-point representation then encrypted into ciphertext space with additive noise. This noise ensures the security of the scheme, relying on the computational hardness of the LWE problem. The code also includes the Gentry-Sahai-Waters (GSW) scheme based off the LWE problem. Homomorphic matrix multiplication is performed between the LWE and GSW to encrypted data. This is achieved using a decomposition function on the LWE ciphertext during the multiplication operation. For higher-dimensional data, the code includes a method to encrypt entire matrices (GSWMat) using GSW encryption. These encrypted matrices can then be used for homomorphic matrix multiplications (MatMult). The decryption function uses the secret key to recover the original plaintext, removing the added noise and scaling that was originally applied during encryption.

Lois, Roberts [Idaho National Laboratory (INL), Id

Application of Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning to Operations Research

This report examines the transformative impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) on operations research, private industry, and government sectors, highlighting their applications in automating processes, enhancing decision-making, and optimizing complex systems. AI/ML technologies have revolutionized industries through predictive maintenance, supply chain optimization, and autonomous systems, while also advancing public safety and defense operations. However, challenges such as data integrity, model transparency, and the need for human oversight persist, particularly in high-consequence environments. The report emphasizes the critical role of explainable AI (XAI) and human-computer interaction models like Human-in-the-Loop (HITL) and Human-on-the-Loop (HOTL) in fostering trust and accountability. Balancing automation with ethical responsibility and transparency is essential for the continued successful integration of AI/ML into operational and strategic decision-making frameworks.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING

Extracting Vehicle Trajectories from Partially Overlapping Roadside Radar

This work presents a methodology for extracting vehicle trajectories from six partially-overlapping roadside radars through a signalized corridor. The methodology incorporates radar calibration, transformation to the Frenet space, Kalman filtering, short-term prediction, lane-classification, trajectory association, and a covariance intersection-based approach to track fusion. The resulting dataset contains 79,000 fused radar trajectories over a 26-h period, capturing diverse driving scenarios including signalized intersections, merging behavior, and a wide range of speeds. Compared to popular trajectory datasets such as NGSIM and highD, this dataset offers extended temporal coverage, a large number of vehicles, and varied driving conditions. The filtered leader–follower pairs from the dataset provide a substantial number of trajectories suitable for car-following model calibration. The framework and dataset presented in this work has the potential to be leveraged broadly in the study of advanced traffic management systems, autonomous vehicle decision-making, and traffic research.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS

Analog Systems for Edge Optimization

Over the past decade, analog computing has the subject of substantial research interest providing a path toward improved computational efficiency in the post-Dennard era. Analog matrix vector multiplication (MVM) accelerators provide a popular approach given the ubiquity of MVM operations in numerous applications. However, historically analog computing systems can struggle with applications requiring high precision due to the inherent susceptibility of these systems to analog non-idealities. Therefore, prior work on analog systems has focused either on applications known to be tolerant of limited precision (e.g., neural network inference), or using expensive techniques to emulate high-precision using many analog MVM operations. In this work, we propose an alternative approach. Motivated by recent advances in inexact nonlinear solvers and optimizers, we explore the potential of co-designing optimization algorithms which can take full advantage of the fundamentally inexact analog MVM operations. To enable these co-designed algorithms we also develop a general mathematical theory of the precision and energy efficiency of analog operations, and a new system architecture for tightly-coupled analog and digital computation. Finally, we examine the applicability of analog computing to a wider class of symmetric positive definite systems and find potential in using analog operations as a sparse approximate inverse preconditioner. With these core innovations, this project provides a path toward effectively implementing optimization algorithms on power-constrained autonomous and semi-autonomous systems.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING

Autonomous Synthesis and Inverse Design of Electrochromic Polymers with High Efficiency and Accuracy

Here, the design and synthesis of functional polymers, aimed at targeted properties through specific structures, have long been challenged by their complex and often nonlinear structure–property relationships. Key processes, including knowledge accumulation for predictive design and experimental refinement and validation, are traditionally labor-insensitive and time-consuming, making it difficult to balance accuracy and efficiency. Here, we introduce an accelerated, autonomous system for the on-demand synthesis of electronic polymers that achieves the desired electrochromic functionality with high accuracy and efficiency. Our approach leverages large language model-assisted data mining, a physics-informed copolymer machine learning model, and an AI-driven autonomous robotic workflow in the Polybot lab. Within 72 h, Polybot autonomously synthesized electrochromic polymers (ECPs) with targeted, previously-unreported color values, including green polymers with specific absorption profiles, precisely fine-tuning copolymer structures with a 5% step size in comonomer composition within a three-monomer system. A publicly accessible ECP informatics database has also been created to foster knowledge exchange.

AI-driven Robotic Lab

Proposed Classifications of Remote Operations for Nuclear Reactors Based on Physical and Cybersecurity Considerations

The incorporation of remote operations into reactor operations is a topic of high interest among advanced and small modular reactor (A/SMR) vendors, with some considering it essential to the success of their business models. However, remote operations are a concept novel to the nuclear industry. While various technical aspects of remote operations have been explored, a significant gap remains in understanding the security implications of integrating remote operations into reactor designs, particularly concerning the security requirements for remote-operations facilities and infrastructure. This report aims to address this gap by first defining classes of remote operation based on the extent of remote access to reactor control systems and grounded in the existing regulatory framework with compatible terminology. Secondly, the report outlines the physical and cybersecurity requirements applicable to remote-operations facilities and infrastructure at each defined class. These requirements are based on existing licensing frameworks provided by 10 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 50 and 10 CFR Part 52, as well as the upcoming A/SMR licensing framework in the proposed Part 53. The assessment focuses specifically on security regulations, such as 10 CFR Part 73, which includes provisions for both cybersecurity (§ 73.54) and physical security (§ 73.55). This report proposes five classes of remote reactor operations. Class 1 involves remote monitoring only, with no control over reactor systems. Class 2 allows for the remote issuance of allowlisted commands to the reactor facility. Class 3 extends control to non-safety-significant, non-safety-related, or not important to safety systems and equipment. Class 4 permits remote control of safety-significant systems. Finally, Class 5 allows remote control of safety-related systems. It is important to note that these classes were defined purely with functionality in mind, without considering the practicality or feasibility of implementation for each class under current or upcoming regulatory guidance. The intention behind this approach is to enable an assessment of which security requirements apply to each class, allowing readers to evaluate the implementation possibilities for their specific use cases. Following the definition of remote-operation classes, the report assesses the specific physical and cybersecurity requirements applicable to the remote-operations facility and infrastructure within each defined class. This includes defining the types and locations of operators that are possible at each class of operation and, based on operator type and location, as well as functionality within each class, outlining the physical and cybersecurity requirements. By detailing the security requirements by class, the report provides readers with the information needed to determine the type of security program they may need to implement for their desired concept of operation. The next contribution of this report was to assess the practicality of implementing each proposed class of remote operations based upon the security requirement assessment. In short, three of the five proposed remote-operation classes were found to possibly have a practical path forward to implementation under the U.S. regulatory framework. Class 1 remote operations are currently in use in the U.S. while Class 2 and 3 remote operations may be logistically possible to implement under the U.S. regulatory framework. The final two Classes, 4 and 5, would likely be logistically difficult, if not infeasible to implement within the current U.S. physical- and cybersecurity regulatory framework. Given the results of the feasibility assessment, an example architecture is proposed for both Class 2, remote allowlisted commands, and Class 3, remote control of non-safety systems as well as security implication assessments of each architecture. These example implementations are not meant to be prescriptive in terms of how Class 2 or Class 3 remote operations should be deployed; instead, they are intended to be informative to stakeholders on how Class 2 or Class 3 could potentially be applied in order to inform their system design. An example architecture for Class 1 remote monitoring was not provided as Class 1 in already in use in U.S. nuclear operations. Example architectures for Class 4 and Class 5 were not provided due to their assessment of being likely infeasible to implement. The final contribution is an assessment of the physical- and cybersecurity implications of introducing autonomous operations into an A/SMR. What was found was that the security implications can be separated into two cases. Autonomous operations supported by SSCs located only at the reactor site, and autonomous operations supported by SSCs outside of the reactor site. For the first case, the introduction of autonomous systems will likely not change the facility’s requirement to comply with existing cyber and physical security regulation

22 - GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS

Basic Research Needs for Inverse Methods for Complex Systems under Uncertainty

Inverse problems, which aim to infer unknown properties of a system using experimental and observational data, are central to addressing many of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) most critical scientific and engineering challenges. Accurate, computationally efficient, and data-efficient solutions to inverse problems are essential for advancing DOE mission-critical science drivers, including analyzing data from large-scale experimental facilities, optimizing fusion reactor performance, accelerating materials discovery, enhancing geophysical imaging, improving wildfire predictions, and enabling autonomous systems and digital twins. However, these problems are becoming increasingly complex, often involving nonlinear, highdimensional, and interconnected systems and models that span multiple physics and scales, while relying on data with varying quantity, quality, and information content. Compounding these challenges is the uncertainty inherent in DOE-relevant systems, where errors in inputs, noise in data, incompleteness of data, and discrepancies between models and reality constrain the accuracy and precision of solutions. At the same time, the convergence of recent scientific computing trends—scientific machine learning, artificial intelligence, and computing advances such as exascale computing—is creating unprecedented opportunities for tackling these challenges. The cross-cutting nature of inverse problems, combined with their growing complexity and rapidly evolving data and algorithmic demands, strongly motivates the formulation of a prioritized research agenda to maximize their capabilities and impact. In response to this need, DOE’s Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) program in the Office of Science convened the Workshop on Basic Research Needs for Inverse Problems for Complex Systems Under Uncertainty in June 2025. This workshop brought together experts across disciplines to identify grand challenges and major opportunities in the field. Through collaborative discussions, the workshop defined transformative research directions aimed at addressing the mathematical, statistical, and computational challenges posed by inverse problems under uncertainty. As a result of these efforts, four priority research directions (PRDs) were identified to guide future research and development in this area. These PRDs, summarized below, represent a roadmap for advancing the foundational science and mathematics of inverse problems, enabling robust, scalable, and uncertainty-aware solutions that are critical for DOE applications.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING

High energy density picoliter-scale zinc-air microbatteries for colloidal robotics

The recent interest in microscopic autonomous systems, including microrobots, colloidal state machines, and smart dust, has created a need for microscale energy storage and harvesting. However, macroscopic materials for energy storage have noted incompatibilities with microfabrication techniques, creating substantial challenges to realizing microscale energy systems. Here, we photolithographically patterned a microscale zinc/platinum/SU-8 system to generate the highest energy density microbattery at the picoliter (10 −12 liter) scale. The device scavenges ambient or solution-dissolved oxygen for a zinc oxidation reaction, achieving an energy density ranging from 760 to 1070 watt-hours per liter at scales below 100 micrometers lateral and 2 micrometers thickness in size. The parallel nature of photolithography processes allows 10,000 devices per wafer to be released into solution as colloids with energy stored on board. Within a volume of only 2 picoliters each, these primary microbatteries can deliver open circuit voltages of 1.05 ± 0.12 volts, with total energies ranging from 5.5 ± 0.3 to 7.7 ± 1.0 microjoules and a maximum power near 2.7 nanowatts. We demonstrated that such systems can reliably power a micrometer-sized memristor circuit, providing access to nonvolatile memory. We also cycled power to drive the reversible bending of microscale bimorph actuators at 0.05 hertz for mechanical functions of colloidal robots. Additional capabilities, such as powering two distinct nanosensor types and a clock circuit, were also demonstrated. The high energy density, low volume, and simple configuration promise the mass fabrication and adoption of such picoliter zinc-air batteries for micrometer-scale, colloidal robotics with autonomous functions.

Robotics

From Chaos to Clarity: Autonomous Materials Discovery for Extreme Environments [Slides]

The pursuit of advanced functional materials for energy applications demands an understanding of their behavior under the most challenging conditions. Extreme environments, characterized by intense radiation, high temperatures, and corrosive chemistries, push materials to their limits, often revealing unexpected behaviors and degradation pathways. Traditional materials research approaches, relying on trial-and-error experimentation, are often slow and resource-intensive, ill-suited to the complexities of extreme environments. This talk will explore the transformative potential of autonomous materials science in revolutionizing our understanding of materials synthesis and degradation in extreme environments. By integrating advanced microscopy techniques, artificial intelligence, and robotic experimentation, we can accelerate the discovery and design of resilient materials for a sustainable future. The presentation will highlight recent breakthroughs in autonomous microscopy, computer vision, and machine learning, showcasing their ability to unravel complex material transformations at the atomic scale. The talk will also delve into the challenges and opportunities associated with deploying autonomous systems to probe extreme environments, emphasizing the importance of robust algorithms, real-time data analysis, and adaptive experimentation. The ultimate goal is to empower scientists with unprecedented capabilities to explore, understand, and engineer materials that can withstand the harshest conditions, paving the way for innovations in energy, aerospace, and beyond.

14 SOLAR ENERGY

Demonstration and analysis of volumetric additive manufacturing via sub-orbital spaceflight testing

Computed Axial Lithography (CAL) represents a significant advancement in the emerging field of Volumetric Additive Manufacturing (VAM). CAL addresses key limitations of traditional photopolymer additive manufacturing technologies, by eliminating the need for layering and support structures. Unlike conventional methods, CAL prints components by illuminating all points within a desired geometry simultaneously, using tomographic reconstruction to form the object in a single step. This unique approach eliminates the relative motion between the object and the precursor material, enabling faster printing speeds and reducing the waste associated with support structures. However, CAL parts require post-processing steps before they can be utilized. CAL's core attributes make it particularly suited for In-Space Manufacturing (ISM), due to its fast fabrication times, wide breadth of materials it can use, and minimized footprint. CAL has been successfully demonstrated in microgravity during parabolic flight experiments. However to fully validate and understand CAL's behaviour in microgravity, all manufacturing and post-processing steps must be integrated. In June 2024, we conducted SpaceCAL Mission 3, testing this entire workflow on a suborbital flight aboard Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo. During ~140 s of microgravity, the system autonomously manufactured and post-processed four parts using PEGDA700 resin. Post-flight analysis showed that 2/4 parts were recognisable, while others were distorted due to bubble formation from residual water droplets, off-axis optical aberrations, and non-uniform solvent rinsing. Despite these limitations, this study represents the first integrated CAL workflow in space, providing an initial experimental demonstration and analysis for closed-loop in-space manufacturing.

Waddell, Taylor [Department of Mechanical Engineer

Are humans still necessary? Expanding the discussion

The rise of automation, artificial intelligence (AI), and autonomous systems raises important questions about the future role of humans and the field of human factors/ergonomics in workplaces. This paper builds on Dr. Peter Hancock’s 2023 ‘Are Humans Still Necessary?’ article published in the Ergonomics journal. Using a multi-method approach that included a debate, opinion polling, roundtable discussions, and AI queries, the current effort examined the necessity of human involvement in future work environments. Debate team members presented arguments for and against the need for human workers, considering human factors, technology, and socioeconomic factors. Observations indicate that while AI may handle routine tasks, humans will likely remain essential for complex decision making, creativity, and ethical considerations. The paper advocates for viewing workplace dynamics as collaborative human-AI partnerships rather than competition, highlighting the need for a transdisciplinary approach in which human factors/ergonomics professionals play a vital role in enhancing these relationships.

99 - GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS

Event-Driven 3D Sensing Architecture

Some events happen too quickly to capture twice. Whether tracking satellites, monitoring aircraft, observing autonomous systems, or recording high speed industrial processes, imaging systems often have only one opportunity to collect the right information. If a camera is focused on the wrong distance, uses the wrong exposure, or cannot keep pace with rapid motion, important details may be lost forever. Los Alamos National Laboratory has developed an event-driven imaging architecture that preserves more information during data collection than a conventional camera. Instead of committing to a single image, the system captures data that can later be used to digitally adjust focus and exposure while reconstructing the scene in three dimensions. The result is a more flexible approach for imaging dynamic environments where conventional cameras can struggle.

42 ENGINEERING

From Chaos to Clarity: Autonomous Materials Discovery for Extreme Environments

The pursuit of advanced functional materials for energy applications demands an understanding of their behavior under the most challenging conditions. Extreme environments, characterized by intense radiation, high temperatures, and corrosive chemistries, push materials to their limits, often revealing unexpected behaviors and degradation pathways. Traditional materials research approaches, relying on trial-and-error experimentation, are often slow and resource-intensive, ill-suited to the complexities of extreme environments. This talk will explore the transformative potential of autonomous materials science in revolutionizing our understanding of materials synthesis and degradation in extreme environments. By integrating advanced microscopy techniques, artificial intelligence, and robotic experimentation, we can accelerate the discovery and design of resilient materials for a sustainable future. The presentation will highlight recent breakthroughs in autonomous microscopy, computer vision, and machine learning, showcasing their ability to unravel complex material transformations at the atomic scale. The talk will also delve into the challenges and opportunities associated with deploying autonomous systems to probe extreme environments, emphasizing the importance of robust algorithms, real-time data analysis, and adaptive experimentation. Our ultimate goal is to empower scientists with unprecedented capabilities to explore, understand, and engineer materials that can withstand the harshest conditions, paving the way for innovations in energy, aerospace, and beyond.

artificial intelligence

Benchtop Autonomous Electrochemical Characterization System for Combinatorial Thin-Film Solid Oxide Electrodes

The design of materials for electrochemical energy conversion is complicated by a vast search space of candidate materials and multifaceted property requirements: multicarrier conductivity, stability, and catalytic activity are all necessary but rarely intersect. Although self-driving laboratories are rapidly rising to address such material optimization problems, the required infrastructure for integrated, large-scale robotic facilities can be cost-prohibitive. Here we develop and evaluate a closed-loop measurement system for efficient screening of proton-conducting oxide electrodes for ceramic fuel cells and electrolyzers, building on top of an existing benchtop instrument and integrating techniques for rapid impedance measurement and automated analysis. This system exemplifies a “minimum viable” self-driving implementation that can deliver substantial benefits with relatively simple infrastructure. Combinatorial thin-film microelectrode libraries are characterized with a recently developed joint time-domain and frequency-domain impedance measurement technique, which provides an order-of-magnitude acceleration relative to conventional impedance spectroscopy. The distribution of relaxation times is extracted from impedance data and analyzed without human intervention. These results feed an active learning and Bayesian optimization process that learns to predict electrochemical impedance as a function of material composition, measurement temperature, oxygen partial pressure, and electrical bias, which further reduces the screening time by tenfold with optimized experimental sequences. We apply this system to Ba⁡(Co,Fe,Zr,Y)⁢O 3−𝛿 combinatorial libraries and evaluate its effectiveness for learning material property trends and optimizing expensive-to-evaluate properties such as activation energy. This offers insights into key methodological aspects of practical autonomous experimentation, including surrogate model validation, cost-aware acquisition functions, and high-throughput data interpretation. Our results demonstrate the efficacy of the system for rapidly gathering information, but also highlight real-world experimental challenges of thin-film degradation and numerical instability in surrogate models.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH

Electrifying Subsea Infrastructure Through Ocean-Powered Systems

This paper explores the potential for electrifying subsea oil and gas infrastructure using wave-powered ocean energy systems. It details how a type of system, an Autonomous Offshore Power System (AOPS), can provide a potential solution and outlines the work and findings to data of joint industry project that integrates and co-demonstrates an AOPS with an electrified subsea asset. In this Project (Project), an AOPS will provide power and data communications to an electrified subsea asset at the PacWave South test site off the U.S. Oregon coast. Here, this paper provides a description and analysis of the system configuration, subsea asset integration process, and pre-deployment testing plans, along with projected benefits for the industry.

16 TIDAL AND WAVE POWER

Autonomous Radiation Cartographer (ARC) System Training Manual

This training manual is designed to provide end users with a comprehensive knowledge base for the safe and effective use of the Autonomous Radiation Cartographer (ARC) System. The ARC is a fully autonomous radiation detection robot based on the Spot Robot platform manufactured by Boston Dynamics.

42 ENGINEERING

Intelligent Surrogate Model Development: Boosting Computational Efficiency for Autonomous Control of Advanced Reactors

Advanced reactors promise enhanced safety, greater efficiency, and waste reductions. To fully realize these benefits, it is crucial to address the need for autonomous or semi-autonomous control systems that require fewer operators. This research primarily supports the MARVEL autonomous control system, which requires real-time operation. However, the current RELAP5 reactor thermal hydraulic transient simulation is excessively time-consuming. Therefore, this study aims to leverage deep learning techniques to develop a surrogate model, providing a more efficient and accurate alternative for real-time performance. The model was trained using a combination of one-timestep prediction and scheduled sampling. It was then used for recursive prediction of the reactor state. This developed surrogate model significantly improves computational efficiency, achieving a 12 times acceleration.

46 - INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AN

Improving Self-Driving Labs: Quantifying System-Level Experiment Repeatability and Broadening Instrument-Level Compatibility

Modular Autonomous Research System (MARS) is a self-driving laboratory (SDL) which performs wet-lab science with peptide-lanthanide combinations in an automated and, ultimately, an autonomous manner to aid in soil analysis for domestic lithium mining. Autonomous experimentation involves automated experimentation, experiment planning, and active learning. MARS consists of a 6-axis robotic arm (UR5e) on a linear rail, pipette robots (Opentrons 2), and microplate readers. These components transport, operate on, and collect data with chemical solutions in standard labware. For effective autonomy, MARS must perform system-level labware operations repeatably, plan experiments autonomously, and be portable between research-domains. Repeatability is evaluated by labware placement precision, such that future operations can properly locate labware, as well as the elapsed time, so that low variance mean estimates of experiment duration can inform high-level researcher decision making. Autonomous experiment planning is the next step to decouple experimentation from human management; however, there is a conflict between the ideal system-level experiment goals and the constraints imposed by instruments’ limitations. Sub-domain portability is a long-term goal to extend MARS’ research beyond the chemistry of peptide-lanthanide binding to other sub-domains without having to invest significant overhead to system retrofitting. To address these goals, we manually trained the robotic arm labware placement and modelled statistical failurerate and uncertainty Additionally, we benchmarked the duration and variance of each experiment sub-operation as a heuristic for research decision making. Next, we use a parameterized geometric program (PGP) approach to design experiments that optimize system-level objectives and satisfy instrument-level constraints. Lastly, we proposed a Python framework to maximize MARS’ extensibility to other scientific sub-domains through a JSON-based experiment specification.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE