TECHNOLOGY AND TALENT: THE SYNERGISTIC COMBINATION NEEDED TO PROTECT CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE
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We are developing tools to link the biochemical structure of selected biomarkers with putative biogenic structures observed in mineralized samples. The detection of evidence of life on Mars and other planets will rely on methods that can discriminate compounds formed exclusively by living organisms. While biogenic compounds, such as amino acids and nucleotides have been discovered in extraterrestrial sources, such as meteorites and comets, their formation can be explained by abiotic means. The formation of cellular structures, or more elaborate organic molecules, such as complex lipids, proteins or nucleic acids, however, is strongly correlated to the presence of even the most primitive life processes. Recent evidence lends support to the hypothesis that life may have once existed on Mars. Carbonate globules and ppm concentrations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) have been described in ALH84001, a meteorite originating from Mars ejecta captured by Earth over 13,000 years ago. The localized high concentration of PAHs that follow an increasing gradient from the intact fusion crust towards the interior corresponds to microgram quantities of hydrocarbon. Even though ALH84001 and other similar meteorites have withstood the forces capable of ejecting rock through Mars' escape velocity, upon entering Earth's atmosphere, their core temperatures are likely not to have been raised significantly, as evidenced by the survival of remanent magnetic signatures. Ideal biomarkers of ancient or modern biological life would include molecules that are (or were) pervasive and highly resistant to degradation. Also, requisite methods of detection should be simple, extremely sensitive and broadly inclusive (NASA SP-530). Lipopolysaccharide (LPS), peptidoglycan or pseudopeptidoglycan and beta-glucan are microbial cell wall components which together cover the entire microbial spectrum of eubacteria, archea and fungi. They are all remarkably resistant to thermal degradation. Fortunately, many antimicrobial defense systems of higher organisms require sensitive detection to combat microbial pathogens. We employ here the primitive immune system of the evolutionarily ancient horseshoe crab, Limulus polyphemus. This species relies on multi-enzyme signal amplification detection of cell wall molecules and they can be applied to the development of useful detectors of life. An extension of this work includes the visualization of microbial signatures by labeling LAL components with chromogenic or electron dense markers. The protein Limulus Anti-LPS Factor (LALF) has an extremely high affinity for LPS. By coupling LALF binding with colloidal gold labels we demonstrate a correlation of the structures visible by electron microscopy with biochemical evidence of microbial cell wall materials. Pure silica particles were mixed with cultures of E. coli (10(exp 6) cfu/mL). Samples were washed sequentially with buffered saline, LALF, antibody to LALF and finally colloidal gold-labeled Protein A. Negative controls were not exposed to E. coli but received identical treatment otherwise. Samples were coated with carbon and imaged on a JEOL JSM-840 scanning electron microscope with LaB6 source in the back scatter mode with the JEOL annular back scatter detector. 20 nm-scale black spots in this contrast-reversed image originate from electrons back-scattered by gold atoms. Negative controls did not give any signal. Future work will expand application of this technique to soil simulants and mineralized rock samples.
Intelligent Optical Systems Inc. (IOS) completed Phase I and II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contracts with NASA's Langley Research Center to develop moisture- and pH-sensitive sensors to detect corrosion or pre-corrosive conditions, warning of potentially dangerous conditions before significant structural damage occurs. This new type of sensor uses a specially manufactured optical fiber whose entire length is chemically sensitive, changing color in response to contact with its target, and demonstrated to detect potentially corrosive moisture incursions to within 2 cm. After completing the work with NASA, the company received a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Phase III SBIR to develop the sensors further for detecting chemical warfare agents, for which they proved just as successful. The company then worked with the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to fine tune the sensors for detecting potential threats, such as toxic industrial compounds and nerve agents. In addition to the work with government agencies, Intelligent Optical Systems has sold the chemically sensitive fiber optic cables to major automotive and aerospace companies, who are finding a variety of uses for the devices. Marketed under the brand name Distributed Intrinsic Chemical Agent Sensing and Transmission (DICAST), these unique continuous-cable fiber optic chemical sensors can serve in a variety of applications: Corrosive-condition monitoring, aiding experimentation with nontraditional power sources, as an economical means of detecting chemical release in large facilities, as an inexpensive "alarm" systems to alert the user to a change in the chemical environment anywhere along the cable, or in distance-resolved optical time domain reflectometry systems to provide detailed profiles of chemical concentration versus length.
The electric grid has undergone rapid, revolutionary changes in recent years; from the addition of advanced smart technologies to the growing penetration of distributed energy resources (DERs) to increased interconnectivity and communications. However, these added communications, access interfaces, and third-party software to enable autonomous control schemes and interconnectivity also expand the attack surface of the grid. To address the gap of DER cybersecurity and secure the grid-edge to motivate a holistic, defense-in-depth approach, a proactive intrusion detection and mitigation system (PIDMS) device was developed to secure PV smart inverter communications. The PIDMS was developed as a distributed, flexible bump-in-the-wire (BITW) solution for protecting PV smart inverter communications. Both cyber (network traffic) and physical (power system measurements) are processed using network intrusion monitoring tools and custom machinelearning algorithms for deep packet analysis and cyber-physical event correlation. The PIDMS not only detects abnormal events but also deploys mitigations to limit or eliminate system impact; the PIDMS communicates with peer PIDMSs at different locations using the MQTT protocol for increased situational awareness and alerting. The details of the PIDMS methodology and prototype development are detailed in this report as well as the evaluation results within a cyber-physical emulation environment and subsequent industry feedback.
Path planning is an important issue for space robotics. Finding safe and energy-efficient paths in the presence of obstacles and other constraints can be complex although important. High-level (large-scale) path planning for robotic vehicles was investigated in three-dimensional space with obstacles, accounting for: (1) energy costs proportional to path length; (2) turn costs where paths change trajectory abruptly; and (3) safety costs for the danger associated with traversing a particular path due to visibility or invisibility from a fixed set of observers. Paths optimal with respect to these cost factors are found. Autonomous or semi-autonomous vehicles were considered operating either in a space environment around satellites and space platforms, or aircraft, spacecraft, or smart missiles operating just above lunar and planetary surfaces. One class of applications concerns minimizing detection, as for example determining the best way to make complex modifications to a satellite without being observed by hostile sensors; another example is verifying there are no paths (holes) through a space defense system. Another class of applications concerns maximizing detection, as finding a good trajectory between mountain ranges of a planet while staying reasonably close to the surface, or finding paths for a flight between two locations that maximize the average number of triangulation points available at any time along the path.
The goal of this project is to identify and address cybersecurity gaps by developing a multi-layer multi-channel cyber-physical defense and survival mechanism for operating distribution networks with high penetration of solar / inverter-based resource (IBR) / distributed energy resource (DER). The proposed security enhancements are built upon the distributed framework and solution architecture for both information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) systems. The technical solutions consist of two composite functionalities and six layers: proactive defense (vulnerability assessment, communication protection, and attack detection, as layers 1-3), and adaptive self-healing (attack-resilient control, adaptive recovery, and resilient survival, as layers 4-6). These layers, built on and extended from DHS CISA Cyber Framework, establish an integrated and robust cybersecurity framework for operating large-scale distribution networks.
Deployment of digital technologies within a modern shift in cyber defense systems is essential for protecting the energy production units. One of the important components of defense is cyberforensics: once an attack has been detected to locate its origin. In this paper, a review of well-known cyberattacks in nuclear facilities is provided, with the lessons learned leading to the development of a machine learning approach implementing identification of internal at- tacks in the facility's data networks. Our approach may be seen as one of the layers in a defense-in-depth strategy that identifies if the attack comes from inside, which may result in identifying faster the attacker's origin. The presented model exploits network packet examination to cast accurate predictions on detailing the origin of malicious network connections. The approach fuses multiple mathematical functions within an artificial neural network to provide a response in the form of 0/1, i. e., whether the attack is identified as internal or not. The utilization of a variety of test cases is developed to explore the relevance and validity of the predictive approach. The proposed implementation is examined with network data packet variance, and the results obtained exhibit a highly accurate detection rate.
High-energy lasers (HELs) play an important role in both national defense and scientific research. In defense applications, HELs are used for target detection, tracking, and engagement. In research environments, they support studies of extreme physical conditions relevant to fusion energy and plasma science. These systems depend on the amplification of light through stimulated emission of radiation, allowing optical energy to be increased to the levels required for operation. This amplification occurs when light passes through an energized gain medium that receives energy from an external optical or electrical source. To achieve the desired output, laser systems often use multiple amplification stages, including high-gain preamplifiers and lower-gain power or booster amplifiers. At Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and other national laboratories, many large-aperture laser amplifier systems are aging and rely on system-specific hardware, obsolete technologies, and incomplete documentation. These legacy systems create challenges for maintenance, supportability, and long-term operation. Their lack of standardization also increases the difficulty of sustaining reliable performance over time. As this infrastructure continues to age, the likelihood of unplanned downtime grows, which can negatively affect both national security missions and scientific research programs that depend on dependable HEL capabilities. The purpose of this document is to demonstrate the application of systems engineering fundamentals and design thinking through the development of a laser amplifier case study. The proposed system concept is intended as an academic exercise and not as a finalized engineering design. As a result, the development presented in this document is incomplete and may contain technical assumptions or errors that would require further investigation before any real-world implementation.
In FY2018 through FY2020, NA-22, the Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation Research and Development Program, funded a Data Science project to develop and implement statistical methodology to effectively host data competitions with the goal of leveraging the opportunity provided by crowdsourcing. By accessing and engaging expertise from a broader research community, there is an opportunity to attract innovative solutions from a variety of different research disciplines to advance the ability to solve important non-proliferation problems. This report summarizes the key results of this project after hosting two data competitions focused on urban radiation detection. The first competition was focused on attracting participants from the U.S. national laboratories, while the second, hosted by TopCoder, was open to the broader international community and awarded prize money to the top 10 competitors. At the start of the project, there was strong interest from NA-22 to explore and develop the capability to host data competitions as a means of leveraging the broader community to solve important nuclear nonproliferation problems. Having a standard data set on which to compare different approaches based on clearly defined criteria was desirable to be able to evaluate the state of solutions for important problems. Initially, it was not clear that it would even be possible logistically and bureaucratically to host a competition with an international field of competitors and to award the prize money needed to attract solutions from top competitors. Happily, a path to host the competitions was ultimately found that allowed this powerful accelerator of improvements to be leveraged.
Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma (HNSCC) is significantly represented in the military population with substantial impact on military operations. Two-thirds of new HNSCC cases are first diagnosed at advanced stage III or IV with lymph node metastases. Thus, there is an urgent need of biomarkers for early detection and risk stratification. Archived serum samples from the Department of Defense Serum Repository provide a unique resource for longitudinal studies of HNSCC in the military and the identification of early detection biomarkers. Methods: We identified 175 patients diagnosed with HNSCC with 175 matched healthy controls and retrieved a total of 978 serum samples drawn at the time of diagnosis, 2 and 4 years prior to diagnosis, and 2 years after diagnosis. Following immunoaffinity depletion, serum samples were analyzed by targeted proteomics assays for multiplexed quantification of a panel of 146 candidate protein biomarkers from the curated literature. Results: We derived a 13-protein signature that distinguishes case versus controls based on longitudinal changes in serum protein concentration. The abundances of each of the 13 proteins remain constant over time in control subjects. The area under the curve for the derived random forest classifier was 0.90. Conclusions: This 13-protein classifier is highly promising for detection of HNSCC prior to overt symptoms. Impact: Use of longitudinal samples has significant potential to identify biomarkers for detection and risk stratification.
Radiation detection materials have a unique role in many nuclear security missions. The variety of different applications requires the use of different materials whose characteristics are determined by the specific application requirements. While baseline capabilities have been established to use radiation detection in these applications, the potential to greatly advance those capabilities still exists through the development of superior radiation detection materials and/or the development of new materials that enable new technologies to be implemented more effectively. In 2024 the Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation Research and Development (DNN R&D) Near Field Detection Portfolio charged a detector materials scoping study, composed of a group of radiation-detection materials subject matter experts, to produce a community-wide consensus view of the current state of radiation materials research and to set recommendations for expanded investment over a ten-year time frame. This scoping study sought to understand and document the landscape of how radiation detection materials are used, what characteristics drive the selection of various materials, and what developments are needed to drive the state of the art. To respond to this charge, the scoping study created three working groups, each focusing on a different topical area in radiation detection materials research - Semiconductor Materials, Inorganic Scintillators and Organic Scintillators - with the task to identify the current state of the art in materials research and to provide mission-relevant research and development recommendations. Each working group was chaired by two members of the project team with widely recognized expertise in the field. Solicitations were sent out to experts at the DOE national laboratories, industry, academia and federal government agencies to participate in these working groups. The working groups met at regular intervals throughout 2024 and early 2025, each delivering a technical roadmap designed to enable the pursuit of R&D more intensely on high-impact materials challenges and detector solutions that are deemed as the greatest strategic value to DNN R&D and its stakeholders. The roadmap is also intended to help communicate recommended programmatic priorities within DNN R&D and across the nonproliferation and research communities.
Detection of ultraviolet (UV) bands provides distinct advantages for NASA, defense, and commercial applications, including increased spatial resolution, small pixel sizes, and large format arrays. AlxGa1-xN semiconductor alloys have attracted great interest for detection in the UV spectral region because of their potential for high optical gain, high sensitivity, and low dark current performance in ultraviolet avalanche photodiodes (UV-APDs). We are developing GaN/AlGaN UV-APDs that demonstrate consistent and reliable UV-APD performance and operation. For these UV detectors we have measured gains of above 5×10(exp 6) and high quantum efficiencies at ~350 nm enabled by a strong avalanche multiplication process. These UV-APDs are fabricated through high quality metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) growth on lattice-matched, low dislocation density GaN substrates with optimized GaN/AlGaN UV-APD material growth and doping parameters. The high performance, variable-area GaN/AlGaN UV-APD detectors and arrays can be customized to a wide variety of sizes including large-area formats to enable sensing and high-resolution detection over UV bands of interest.
This Tech Report summarizes years of study and experiences on using GOES Water vapor (6.7 micron and precipitable water) and Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSM/1) from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) derived Precipitable Water (PNAI) for detecting environments favorable for convectively produced flash floods. An emphasis is on the moisture. upper air flow, and equivalent potential temperature (Theta(sub e)) patterns that lead to devastating flood events. The 15 minute 6.7 micron water vapor imagery is essential for tracking middle to upper tropospheric disturbances that produce upward vertical motion and initiate flash flood producing systems. Water vapor imagery at 6.7 micron is also used to detect surges of upper level moisture (called tropical water vapor plumes) that have been associated with extremely heavy rainfall. Since the water vapor readily depicts lifting mechanisms and upper level moisture, water vapor imagery is often an excellent source of data for recognizing patterns of heavy precipitation and flash floods. In order to analyze the depth of the moisture, the PW aspects of the troposphere must be measured. The collocation (or nearby location) of high values ofP\V and instability are antecedent conditions prior to the flash flood or heavy rainfall events. Knowledge of PW magnitudes have been used as thresholds for impending flash flood events, PW trends are essential in flash flood prediction. Conceptual models and water vapor products are used to study some of the characteristics of convective systems that occurred over the United States of America (USA) during the summer of 1997 and the 1997-1998 El Nino. P\V plumes were associated with most of the \vest coast heavy precipitation events examined during the winter season of 1997 - 1998, In another study, conducted during the summer season of 1997. results showed that the collocation of water vapor (6.7 micron) and P\N' plumes possessed higher correlations with predicted rainfall amounts than when PW plumes occurred by themselves (i.e.. without the presence of 6.7 micron water vapor plumes). Satellite Analysis Branch (SAB) meteorologists use the 6.7 micron water and P\V products for their QPE's (interactive Flash Flood Analyzer (IFFA) and Auto-Estimator precipitation estimates), Outlooks, and heavy precipitation briefings with the Hydrometeorological Prediction Center/National Center for Environmental Prediction.
Electrical utilities continue to deploy more intelligent electronic devices (IEDs) inside and outside electrical substation and are associated with distributed energy resources (DERs). The integrity and confidentiality of data from IEDs is crucial, and distributed ledger technology (DLT) could improve the resilience of microgrids by helping to make these data more secure. The most popular applications using blockchain technology for electrical utilities is in the field is based on energy trading. However, the dynamism of the penetration of customer owned DERs and the deployment of sensors with IEDs have led to the identification of new applications using DLT that are focused on other areas, such as monitoring, operation and management of the grid and its assets. In addition, the majority of studies on electrical grid applications with blockchain were validated with software simulations. Although general monitoring of power systems for using DLT could be evaluated in operational electric grids, other DLT research applications such as defense against cyber-attacks and/or electrical fault detection are not likely to be performed in a real infrastructure because of possible risks to the network/equipment security. This report summarizes the application of power system applications using distributed ledger technology (DLT), providing a secure DLT framework for collecting data from IEDs like power meters and protective relays inside and outside of an electrical substation and/or between two different electrical utilities. In this study, the use case scenarios were created and assessed for different power system application by using DLT. The electrical fault detection for faulted phases (1), power quality monitoring of phase voltage magnitudes, frequency levels and load power factor (2), DERs use case monitoring (3), and cyber-event applications (4) were performed in a test bed with a Cyber-Grid Guard (CGG) system using DLT. It had a real-time simulator with power meters and protective relays in-the-loop. The first section of this report presents a literature review of power system applications using blockchain at research level. The second section shows the theory and equations used on this report. The third section shows the description of the test bed, equipment, architecture, and electrical grid diagrams. The fourth section shows the experimental models and use case scenarios that were performed for the electrical fault detection, power quality, DERs use case, and cyber event applications with the CGG system using DLT. The fifth section shows the results collected from the tests based on comparing the time stamped events of the analog signals from the IEDs, DLT computer and real time simulator. The sixth section performed the discussion of the results for the use case scenarios. Finally, section seven presents the conclusions for this report were presented.
Cyber-physical systems and electric utilities significantly depend on the reliability and efficiency of information and operational technology. However, false data injection attacks based on synchrophasor measurement data pose a serious threat to the safe and reliable operation of modern power systems. Here, to mitigate this problem, a rapid monitoring and defense approach is proposed to defend against cyber attacks. Initially, the Time and Frequency based Convolutional neural Network (TFCN) is proposed to detect different types of attacks. Within the TFCN, the advances are that both time and frequency domain information can be fused without extra spectrum analysis methods, and can save detection time to speed the calculation efficiency using the developed time-frequency block. Next, a comprehensive defense strategy is developed for multiple cyber attacks to ensure the stability and resilience of the power system according to the feedback detection results. The advances of this strategy are that different control strategies can be automatically selected to recover the stability to the greatest extent according to the detected attacks. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed approach, the high-speed frequency measurements collected from the wide-area monitoring system are used. The results demonstrate that the cyber attack detection performance can reach 95.57% accuracy, outperforming both traditional and some advanced neural networks. Importantly, the defense strategy is conducted and verified in a modified IEEE 39 bus system as well, which illustrates profound performance in faster stability restoration.
Detection of radioactive material at distances greater than the radiated particle range is an important goal with applications in areas such as national defense and disaster response. Here, we demonstrate avalanche-breakdown-based remote detection of a 3.6 mCi α-particle source at a standoff distance of 10 m, using 70 ps, long-wave infrared (λ = 9.2 µm) CO 2 laser pulses. This is ∼10 times longer than our previous results using a mid-IR laser. The primary detection method is direct backscatter from microplasmas generated in the laser focal volume. The backscatter signal is amplified as it propagates back through the CO 2 laser chain, enhancing sensitivity by >100 times. Here we also characterize breakdown plasmas with fluorescence imaging, and present a simple model to estimate backscattered signals as a function of the seed density profile in the laser focal volume. All of this is achieved with a relatively long-drive laser focal geometry (f/200) that is readily scalable to >100 m.
This dissertation explores the development and deployment of machine learning approaches to address critical challenges in anomaly detection across two distinct domains: neural network security in federated learning settings and cavity behavior analysis in particle accelerator operations at Jefferson Lab in Newport News, Virginia. Anomaly detection identifies deviations from expected patterns, safeguarding systems in cybersecurity, industry, and research against malicious activities and failures. This dissertation demonstrates how our machine learning approaches enhance detection accuracy and efficiency in both neural network security and industrial applications. First, we investigate vulnerabilities in deep neural networks deployed in federated learning. Although federated learning preserves user privacy by training models locally, it remains vulnerable to backdoor attacks, in which malicious participants embed hidden triggers that induce targeted misbehavior. We propose a self-supervised contrastive learning framework to detect and mitigate such backdoor attacks. In our experiments, this method achieves higher detection accuracy and lower false positive rates than existing defenses, while operating without access to local model updates or original training data and thus preserving the privacy guarantees of the federated setting. Second, we address the operational reliability of superconducting radio-frequency (SRF) cavities at the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF). Our research leverages an unsupervised learning approach, combined with Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and k-means clustering, to identify anomalous behaviors in SRF cavities. Our method detects subtle anomalous behavior by analyzing SRF signal data. This knowledge allows for the early detection and resolution of potential faults, significantly improving the efficiency and reliability of operations. Third, we extend these insights to time-series anomaly detection more broadly. We design a contrastive-learning based model tailored to increasingly dynamic environments and academic research. This model improves detection accuracy in settings that require real-time monitoring and predictive maintenance. Our research underscores the broader applicability and impact of advanced machine learning techniques in anomaly detection. By extracting meaningful patterns from complex data, machine learning can significantly enhance security in distributed neural networks and improve the efficiency of particle accelerator operations. This dissertation serves as a stepping stone for future investigations into the vast possibilities of anomaly detection, inspiring further exploration and development of machine learning techniques in this field.
The Workshop on Radiographic Imaging and Applications (WORIA) brought together subject matter experts from industry, academia, US and UK government agencies, and the national laboratories to provide a forum to liaise and share information between technology developers in government and industry, end users, and mission stakeholder to produce an “expert consensus view” regarding future research directions toward a comprehensive radiography/penetrating imaging portfolio in the Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation Research and Development Near Field Detection Portfolio. The inaugural WORIA was held at the Spallation Neutron Source at Oak Ridge National Laboratory on February 7–9, 2023. The inaugural WORIA meeting focused on field radiography applications, or situations in which a portable imaging system must be brought to an item of interest (rather than the item brought to an imaging facility). This report documents consensus views derived from the meeting and provides research and development recommendations for federal program managers.