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At least 667 records · Page 37

MO-AB-206-01: PET Physics

This education session will cover the physics and operation principles of gamma cameras and PET scanners. The first talk will focus on PET imaging. An overview of the principles of PET imaging will be provided, including positron decay physics, and the transition from 2D to 3D imaging. More recent advances in hardware and software will be discussed, such as time-of-flight imaging, and improvements in reconstruction algorithms that provide for options such as depth-of-interaction corrections. Quantitative applications of PET will be discussed, as well as the requirements for doing accurate quantitation. Relevant performance tests will also be described. Learning Objectives: Be able to describe basic physics principles of PET and operation of PET scanners. Learn about recent advances in PET scanner hardware technology. Be able to describe advances in reconstruction techniques and improvements Be able to list relevant performance tests. The second talk will focus on gamma cameras. The Nuclear Medicine subcommittee has charged a task group (TG177) to develop a report on the current state of physics testing of gamma cameras, SPECT, and SPECT/CT systems. The report makes recommendations for performance tests to be done for routine quality assurance, annual physics testing, and acceptance tests, and identifies those needed satisfy the ACR accreditation program and The Joint Commission imaging standards. The report is also intended to be used as a manual with detailed instructions on how to perform tests under widely varying conditions. Learning Objectives: At the end of the presentation members of the audience will: Be familiar with the tests recommended for routine quality assurance, annual physics testing, and acceptance tests of gamma cameras for planar imaging. Be familiar with the tests recommended for routine quality assurance, annual physics testing, and acceptance tests of SPECT systems. Be familiar with the tests of a SPECT/CT system that include the CT images for SPECT reconstructions. Become knowledgeable of items to be included in annual acceptance testing reports including CT dosimetry and PACS monitor measurements. T. Turkington, GE Healthcare.

61 RADIATION PROTECTION AND DOSIMETRY↗

Federal Emergency Management Agency Mobile Housing Unit Running Gear Testing (Final Report)

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) stages manufactured housing units (MHUs) at key locations to be used during disasters when other housing accommodations cannot be arranged for individuals or families. Due to the unpredictability of natural disasters and the limitations of the manufactured housing industry to produce large numbers of MHUs in very short periods of time, it is necessary for FEMA to store a large number of units for many months or years. With these long storage periods come degradation issues with frames, tires, bearing, and braking systems. These types of issues are also of interest to the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) because regulated carriers normally transport these units and 49 CFR 393.75 Tires specifies tire loading restrictions for manufactured homes. To compare the running gear (tires, brakes, drums, bearings, axles, springs, and spring mounting hardware) currently specified in the 2014 Rugged Based Performance Requirements (RBPR) and the newly recommended running gear specified in the upcoming revision to the RBPR, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) outlined a Longevity Test Plan, which focused on the assessment of component longevity (failure rates by component type). The Test Plan also studied the forces imparted to the MHU from the running gear from interaction with the roadway for both the running gear in the 2014 RBPR and the running gear specified in the upcoming RBPR revision. Since the assessment of component longevity and failures are also issues of concern for FMCSA, both agencies collaborated to support the research presented in this report. The tests and data collection were conducted at the Navistar Proving Grounds (NPG) in New Carlisle (near South Bend), Indiana, during the May-November 2018 period. Four alternatives for the suspension system of a typical three-bedroom MHU were considered in this test. Alternative 0 was the MHU that was selected from the FEMA staging area in Selma, Alabama. Empirical data had shown that, on average, this alternative experiences one tire failure every 150 miles (or 0.0067 tire failures per mile traveled). Before testing, Alternative 0 was equipped with similar running gear hardware, although in new condition and installed following the manufacturer’s specifications. This became the Baseline Unit, or Alternative 1. Another unit, also selected from the FEMA staging area in Selma, Alabama, was equipped with better axles (i.e., axles that were rated for 7,000lbs as opposed to 6,000lbs for the Baseline Unit) and better tires. This became the Upgrade Unit, or Alternative 2. At the end of the Longevity Test, the Upgrade Unit was mounted with radial tires. This became Alternative 3.Alternative 1 (Baseline Unit) had, on average, one tire failure every 251 miles (or 0.0040 tire failures per mile traveled). So, by simply following the correct manufacturer’s specifications for the assembly of the transportation system, a reduction of 41% in the per mile tire failure was achieved. In the same test, Alternative 2 (Upgrade Unit) showed, on average, one tire failure every 728 miles traveled (or 0.0014 tire failure s per mile traveled). When the Upgrade Unit was mounted with radial tires in the last part of the test, no tire failures were observed for the 2,400 miles tested. That is, in the case of the radial tires (Alternative 3) the tire failure was less than one per 2,400 miles traveled (or less than 0.0004 tire failures per mile traveled). The data collected for the Longevity Test showed that the maximum accelerations were registered in all cases at the center of the MHU in the vertical direction. The overall maximum was registered by the Baseline Unit, Alternative 1. If that value is normalized to 100%, then the Upgrade Unit (Alternative 2) showed, on average, 81% at the same location, and Alternative 3 (radial-tire test) 59%. That is, the upgraded transportation system showed a reduction of 19% and 41% in the vertical accelerations transmitted to MHU at its center when regular and radial tires, respectively, were used. As part of the Test Protocol, NPG conducted a visual inspection of the MHUs and transportation system at the end of each test day. ORNL reviewed all the inspection reports in an attempt to determine if there was any difference in the damage that the Baseline and Upgrade MHUs showed during the test. The Upgrade Unit always showed lower accelerations transmitted to the MHU than the Baseline Unit. In most cases, these differences were statistically significant. The FEMA inspection report, conducted by a FEMA certified inspector at the end of the tests, included a shorter list of damaged items for the Baseline Unit than for the Upgrade Unit, although similar type of damages was described for both units. This may be an indication that, although lower than those of the Baseline Unit, the accelerations transmitted by the Upgrade Unit were above the threshold at which MHU elements start to fail.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Transient Efficiency, Flexibility, and Reliability Optimization of Coal-Fired Power Plants - Final Report

This program developed an advanced model-based monitoring and model-predictive control algorithms for a coal fired power plant (CFPP), and deployed these algorithms in a real-time platform to demonstrate performance benefits for transient flexibility and plant operation efficiency. More specifically, the objectives were successfully achieved through a combination of (i) developing a high-fidelity transient plant model in Apros, which was used as a high-fidelity plant simulation between $100-50\% TMCR$ where TMCR denotes the turbine maximum continuous rating, i.e., baseload, (ii) developing a very fast physics-based reduced-order model (ROM) of the plant, which ran more than $100\times$ faster than real-time, enabling its use as real-time embedded model for model-based estimation (MBE) and model predictive control (MPC) (iii) implementing a real-time MBE based on ROM using a robust unscented Kalman filter (UKF) to continuously tune the ROM to match the measurements from high-fidelity Apros plant model despite significant plant-model mismatch, and thus, obtain a Digital Twin of the plant (iv) designing and implementing a real-time MPC with dual objectives of transient plant load tracking with high ramp rates and minimizing coal consumption, i.e., improving plant efficiency in the baseload-partload operation range of $100-50\% TMCR$. Each key element above was developed and tested individually, and has been reported in corresponding Topical Reports. Finally, all the individual elements were integrated in an overall closed-loop system, that was successfully tested in desktop Simulink test harness simulations with ROM or high-fidelity model as the plant. Thereafter, the Simulink implementation was used to auto-generate C-code and deploy as real-time Docker microservice containers in Linux, and validate that they can run in real-time in the hardware-in-the loop (HIL) setup and produce the same results as in Simulink. The results of the integrated simulation tests in Simulink as well as the real-time HIL deployment are documented in this final report, showing good load tracking for load ramps at $3-4\%/min$ ramp rates, and achieving up to $5.5\%$ reduction in coal relative to baseline operation at $50\% TMCR$ load. The desktop and HIL simulations show successful performance of the overall model based estimation and control solution and achieve the key objectives of the program for flexible, efficient and reliable operation of subcritical coal fired power plants.

20 FOSSIL-FUELED POWER PLANTS↗

Transient Efficiency, Flexibility, and Reliability Optimization of Coal-Fired Power Plants - Final Program Review

This program developed an advanced model-based monitoring and model-predictive control algorithms for a coal fired power plant (CFPP), and deployed these algorithms in a real-time platform to demonstrate performance benefits for transient flexibility and plant operation efficiency. More specifically, the objectives were successfully achieved through a combination of (i) developing a high-fidelity transient plant model in Apros, which was used as a high-fidelity plant simulation between $100-50\% TMCR$ where TMCR denotes the turbine maximum continuous rating, i.e., baseload, (ii) developing a very fast physics-based reduced-order model (ROM) of the plant, which ran more than $100\times$ faster than real-time, enabling its use as real-time embedded model for model-based estimation (MBE) and model predictive control (MPC) (iii) implementing a real-time MBE based on ROM using a robust unscented Kalman filter (UKF) to continuously tune the ROM to match the measurements from high-fidelity Apros plant model despite significant plant-model mismatch, and thus, obtain a Digital Twin of the plant (iv) designing and implementing a real-time MPC with dual objectives of transient plant load tracking with high ramp rates and minimizing coal consumption, i.e., improving plant efficiency in the baseload-partload operation range of $100-50\% TMCR$. Each key element above was developed and tested individually, and has been reported in corresponding Topical Reports. Finally, all the individual elements were integrated in an overall closed-loop system, that was successfully tested in desktop Simulink test harness simulations with ROM or high-fidelity model as the plant. Thereafter, the Simulink implementation was used to auto-generate C-code and deploy as real-time Docker microservice containers in Linux, and validate that they can run in real-time in the hardware-in-the loop (HIL) setup and produce the same results as in Simulink. The results of the integrated simulation tests in Simulink as well as the real-time HIL deployment are documented in this final report, showing good load tracking for load ramps at $3-4\%/min$ ramp rates, and achieving up to $5.5\%$ reduction in coal relative to baseline operation at $50\% TMCR$ load. The desktop and HIL simulations show successful performance of the overall model based estimation and control solution and achieve the key objectives of the program for flexible, efficient and reliable operation of sub-critical coal fired power plants.

20 FOSSIL-FUELED POWER PLANTS↗

A Novel Power-Hardware-in-the-Loop Interface Method for Grid-forming Inverter Systems: Preprint

Power Hardware-in-the-Loop (PHIL) simulation of grid-forming (GFM) inverter systems facilitates the testing of drastic scenarios like on-grid to off-grid transition, islanded microgrid operation without stiff grid etc. To the authors best knowledge, most of studies in literature are focused on PHIL simulation for grid-following inverter systems and only few studies are focused on GFM inverters and those are challenging and problematic especially for high-power applications. In this article, a novel PHIL simulation platform is proposed that enables interfacing of high-power GFM inverter systems. It proposes the concept of a virtual GFM inverter as a part of the proposed PHIL interface for GFM inverter. This addition of virtual GFM inverter in the PHIL interface expands the conventional Ideal Transformer Model (ITM) method and enables it to overcome the issues of instability of existing ITM methods. In the validation stage, a PHIL experiment is conducted on a 3-phase 480 V, 125 kVA GFM inverter system with proposed interfacing method. The results corroborates the fact that the proposed PHIL simulation method performs well and stable for GFM inverter system.

grid-forming inverters↗

Novel Power-Hardware-in-the-Loop Interface Method for Grid-Forming Inverter Systems

Power-hardware-in-the-loop (PHIL) simulations of grid-forming (GFM) inverter systems facilitate the testing of drastic scenarios, such as on-grid to off-grid transitions and islanded microgrid operations without a stiff grid. To the authors’ best knowledge, most studies in the literature focus on PHIL simulations for grid-following inverter systems. Only a few studies focus on GFM inverters, and those are challenging and problematic, especially for high-power applications. This article proposes a novel PHIL simulation platform that enables interfacing high-power GFM inverter systems. The paper proposes the concept of a virtual GFM inverter as a part of the proposed PHIL interface. This addition of a virtual GFM inverter in the PHIL interface expands the conventional ideal transformer model (ITM) method and enables it to overcome the issues of instability of existing ITM methods. In the validation stage, a PHIL experiment is conducted on a three-phase, 480-V, 125-kVA GFM inverter system with the proposed interfacing method. The results corroborate that the proposed PHIL simulation method performs well and is stable for GFM inverter systems.

droop control↗

Detecting Hardware Trojans in PCBs Using Side Channel Loopbacks

Malicious modifications to printed circuit boards (PCBs) are known as hardware Trojans. These may arise when malafide third parties alter PCBs premanufacturing or postmanufacturing and are a concern in safety-critical applications, such as industrial control systems. In this research, we examine how data-driven detection can be utilized to detect such Trojans at run-time. We develop a flexible and reconfigurable PCB test bed derived from the popular open-source programmable logic controller (PLC) platform “OpenPLC.” We then develop a Trojan detection framework, which utilizes and analyzes multimodal side channels (e.g., timing, magnetic signals, power, and hardware performance counters). We consider defender-configurable input/output (I/O) loopback test, comparison with design-document baselines, and magnetometer-aided monitoring of system behavior under defender-chosen excitations. Our approach can extend to golden-free environments. Golden (known-good) versions of the PCBs are assumed not available, but design information, datasheets, and component-level data are available. We demonstrate the efficacy of our approach on a range of Trojans instantiated in the test bed.

42 ENGINEERING↗

MO-AB-204-04: Connectathons and Testing

You’ve experienced the frustration: vendor A’s device claims to work with vendor B’s device, but the practice doesn’t match the promise. Getting devices working together is the hidden art that Radiology and Radiation Oncology staff have to master. To assist with that difficult process, the Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) effort was established in 1998, with the coordination of the Radiological Society of North America. Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) is a consortium of healthcare professionals and industry partners focused on improving the way computer systems interconnect and exchange information. This is done by coordinating the use of published standards like DICOM and HL7. Several clinical and operational IHE domains exist in the healthcare arena, including Radiology and Radiation Oncology. The ASTRO-sponsored IHE Radiation Oncology (IHE-RO) domain focuses on radiation oncology specific information exchange. This session will explore the IHE Radiology and IHE RO process for; IHE solicitation process for new profiles. Improving the way computer systems interconnect and exchange information in the healthcare enterprise Supporting interconnectivity descriptions and proof of adherence by vendors Testing and assuring the vendor solutions to connectivity problems. Including IHE profiles in RFPs for future software and hardware purchases. Learning Objectives: Understand IHE role in improving interoperability in health care. Understand process of profile development and implantation. Understand how vendors prove adherence to IHE RO profiles. S. Hadley, ASTRO Supported Activity.

61 RADIATION PROTECTION AND DOSIMETRY↗

Development of a modular test system for the silicon sensor R&D of the ATLAS Upgrade

High Voltage CMOS sensors are a promising technology for tracking detectors in collider experiments. Extensive R&D studies are being carried out by the ATLAS Collaboration for a possible use of HV-CMOS in the High Luminosity LHC upgrade of the Inner Tracker detector. CaRIBOu (Control and Readout Itk BOard) is a modular test system developed to test Silicon based detectors. It currently includes five custom designed boards, a Xilinx ZC706 development board, FELIX (Front-End LInk eXchange) PCIe card and a host computer. A software program has been developed in Python to control the CaRIBOu hardware. CaRIBOu has been used in the testbeam of the HV-CMOS sensor AMS180v4 at CERN. Preliminary results have shown that the test system is very versatile. In conclusion, further development is ongoing to adapt to different sensors, and to make it available to various lab test stands.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

MO-AB-206-02: Testing Gamma Cameras Based On TG177 WG Report

This education session will cover the physics and operation principles of gamma cameras and PET scanners. The first talk will focus on PET imaging. An overview of the principles of PET imaging will be provided, including positron decay physics, and the transition from 2D to 3D imaging. More recent advances in hardware and software will be discussed, such as time-of-flight imaging, and improvements in reconstruction algorithms that provide for options such as depth-of-interaction corrections. Quantitative applications of PET will be discussed, as well as the requirements for doing accurate quantitation. Relevant performance tests will also be described. Learning Objectives: Be able to describe basic physics principles of PET and operation of PET scanners. Learn about recent advances in PET scanner hardware technology. Be able to describe advances in reconstruction techniques and improvements Be able to list relevant performance tests. The second talk will focus on gamma cameras. The Nuclear Medicine subcommittee has charged a task group (TG177) to develop a report on the current state of physics testing of gamma cameras, SPECT, and SPECT/CT systems. The report makes recommendations for performance tests to be done for routine quality assurance, annual physics testing, and acceptance tests, and identifies those needed satisfy the ACR accreditation program and The Joint Commission imaging standards. The report is also intended to be used as a manual with detailed instructions on how to perform tests under widely varying conditions. Learning Objectives: At the end of the presentation members of the audience will: Be familiar with the tests recommended for routine quality assurance, annual physics testing, and acceptance tests of gamma cameras for planar imaging. Be familiar with the tests recommended for routine quality assurance, annual physics testing, and acceptance tests of SPECT systems. Be familiar with the tests of a SPECT/CT system that include the CT images for SPECT reconstructions. Become knowledgeable of items to be included in annual acceptance testing reports including CT dosimetry and PACS monitor measurements. T. Turkington, GE Healthcare.

61 RADIATION PROTECTION AND DOSIMETRY↗

Exploring Infiniband Hardware Virtualization in OpenNebula towards Efficient High-Performance Computing

has been widely accepted that software virtualization has a big negative impact on high-performance computing (HPC) application performance. This work explores the potential use of Infiniband hardware virtualization in an OpenNebula cloud towards the efficient support of MPI-based workloads. We have implemented, deployed, and tested an Infiniband network on the FermiCloud private Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) cloud. To avoid software virtualization towards minimizing the virtualization overhead, we employed a technique called Single Root Input/Output Virtualization (SRIOV). Our solution spanned modifications to the Linux’s Hypervisor as well as the OpenNebula manager. We evaluated the performance of the hardware virtualization on up to 56 virtual machines connected by up to 8 DDR Infiniband network links, with micro-benchmarks (latency and bandwidth) as well as w a MPI-intensive application (the HPL Linpack benchmark).

Pais Pitta de Lacerda Ruivo, Tiago↗

Cybersecurity for Grid Connected eXtreme Fast Charging (XFC) Station (CyberX) (Final Scientific/Technical Report)

This report summarizes the activities conducted under the DOE VTO funded project DE- EE0008451, where ABB Inc. (ABB), in collaboration with Idaho National Laboratory (INL), APS Global (APS), and XOS Trucks (XOS) pursued the development of a cyber-resilient extreme fast charging (XFC) management system. This project entitled Cybersecurity for Grid Connected eXtreme Fast Charging (XFC) Station (CyberX) focuses on a resilient architecture for smart charging EV Supply Equipment (EVSE) device control and Coordinated Anomaly Detection System (CADS) features that can be added at the charging site depot level to increase cybersecurity. The project was split into two budget periods focused first on developing the threat model and resilient control concepts and second on testing, improving, and validating those developed resilient control algorithms and features with a focus on key vulnerabilities identified during the threat assessment portion of the project. During the first budget period of the CyberX project, the ABB led team focused on activities to identify, model, and quantitatively prioritize high-impact attack scenarios with potential cyber-physical effects while also modeling and developing concepts for a resilient control system that could securely address integration of DERs and other resources with EV charging. Development of the security focused XFC management system (XMS) was accomplished first by offline simulation using a developed XFC station or depot with 480V input level and simulating measurement inputs to monitoring and control systems in concept development. A representative distribution grid model was developed supporting an EV charging site model with BESS and 6 general EV charging models. These EV charging models allowed multiple configurations of charging level, multiple connected protection and measurement devices, and simulation function to show general compromise of EV, BESS, and protection features based on parallel threat analysis. During the second budget period, the EV site and supporting systems model was developed in more detail and converted from offline model to real-time to real-time with EV charging hardware in the loop (HIL). The resilient control architecture developed as concept in the first part of the project was further tested and validated for integration of local energy resources and XFC charging station site equipment while maintaining cybersecure operating principles. The proposed resilient architecture for smart charging and cybersecurity features consists of two main concepts developed and tested within the project. The first concept is an XFC management system (XMS) consisting of a hardware gateway, software platform, and Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) or Distribution Management System integration components. The second concept is a Coordinated Anomaly Detection System (CADS) which forms a primarily software-related subsystem of the total CyberX solution focused on monitoring system measurements, estimation of measurement states, and predicting current at the utility point of interaction based on machine learning for anomaly detection.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

Development of Irradiation Test Devices for Transient Testing

The Transient Reactor Test facility (TREAT) resumed operations in 2017 in order to reclaim its crucial role in nuclear-heated fuel safety research. TREAT’s historic era of operation (1959-1994) was best known for integral-scale testing of large fuel specimens/bundles under postulated reactor plant accident conditions, but TREAT also supported smaller-scale phenomena identification tests that elucidated fundamental behaviors and paved the way for these integral-scale tests. Advances in modern computational capabilities and a resurgence of interest in novel reactor technologies have created an opportunity for emphasizing modernized science-based and separate effects tests once again at TREAT. An innovative approach to this type of testing has been developed to leverage minor radioactivity built-in during brief TREAT irradiations by arranging smaller fuel specimens in low activation hardware so that they can be easily extracted and shipped for post irradiation examination within weeks. This recently-established capability, termed the Minimal Activation Retrievable Capsule Holder (MARCH) irradiation vehicle system, includes capabilities for cost-effective simplified-environment testing of centimeter-scale fuel samples of various geometries, temperature-controlled irradiations of millimeter-size samples for lower-length-scale model development, liquid-metal bonded heat sink capsules for controlling transient temperature response in fuel rodlets, and an innovative approach to high throughput irradiation of transient sensors and instrumentation. The MARCH system’s capabilities will also set the foundation for fuel safety research performed in larger integral-scale test devices with coolant environments representing reactor plants. Based upon historic approaches, but modernized to meet current nuclear technology needs, these larger irradiation devices include flowing pressurized water (including the ability to depressurize to steam) as well liquid metal cooling loops for various fuel rod and small bundle specimens. Here, this paper describes the recently-established MARCH system and current trajectory to enabling advanced transient science with a suite of irradiation test devices.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

Software Architecture and Hardware Organization in Mu2e Solenoid Field Mapping System

Herein, the Mu2e field mapping system is designed to produce high accuracy field maps of the detector solenoid used in the experiment. The data acquisition system is mobile and uses a self-propelled mapper with rotating arms equipped with 3D Hall probes. The measurements require not only accurate magnetic field readouts, but also accurate locations of all Hall probes while measuring data. The latter is accomplished by using the laser tracker to measure positions of several retroreflectors on the field mapper during data acquisition. The measurement process requires scanning the whole space inside the large solenoid and takes many hours to complete, which necessitates its full automation. The automation software includes control of the mapper, readout of Hall and NMR probes and control of a laser tracker, including prediction of retroreflector positions and execution of quality control checks. The software architecture and data acquisition hardware of the field mapping system are described, with special attention given to control of the laser tracker and its integration with the rest of the system.

3d hall probes↗

Assembly and Initial Testing of the Gamma-Ray Emission Tomography Assessment Prototype for Irradiated Fuel

The following report documents the final development, assembly, and initial testing of the gamma-ray emission tomography assessment system (GRETA-1) for post-irradiation examination of irradiated fuel. It includes descriptions of the system components, including the high-purity germanium gamma-ray detector, the surrounding shield and collimator, the sample scanning hardware, and the control and collection software package. A series of MCNP6 simulations were performed that modeled a fuel rod scan to test image reconstruction algorithms with a complex and understood source distribution. A bench-top scan of isotopic check sources was also performed and analyzed using standard image reconstruction algorithms. The system is currently awaiting deployment at Idaho National Laboratory’s Hot Fuel Examination Facility.

46 - INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AN↗

WE-G-204-07: Automated Characterization of Perceptual Quality of Clinical Chest Radiographs: Improvements in Lung, Spine, and Hardware Detection

Purpose: To develop and validate more robust methods for automated lung, spine, and hardware detection in AP/PA chest images. This work is part of a continuing effort to automatically characterize the perceptual image quality of clinical radiographs. [Y. Lin et al. Med. Phys. 39, 7019–7031 (2012)] Methods: Our previous implementation of lung/spine identification was applicable to only one vendor. A more generalized routine was devised based on three primary components: lung boundary detection, fuzzy c-means (FCM) clustering, and a clinically-derived lung pixel probability map. Boundary detection was used to constrain the lung segmentations. FCM clustering produced grayscale- and neighborhood-based pixel classification probabilities which are weighted by the clinically-derived probability maps to generate a final lung segmentation. Lung centerlines were set along the left-right lung midpoints. Spine centerlines were estimated as a weighted average of body contour, lateral lung contour, and intensity-based centerline estimates. Centerline estimation was tested on 900 clinical AP/PA chest radiographs which included inpatient/outpatient, upright/bedside, men/women, and adult/pediatric images from multiple imaging systems. Our previous implementation further did not account for the presence of medical hardware (pacemakers, wires, implants, staples, stents, etc.) potentially biasing image quality analysis. A hardware detection algorithm was developed using a gradient-based thresholding method. The training and testing paradigm used a set of 48 images from which 1920 51×51 pixel{sup 2} ROIs with and 1920 ROIs without hardware were manually selected. Results: Acceptable lung centerlines were generated in 98.7% of radiographs while spine centerlines were acceptable in 99.1% of radiographs. Following threshold optimization, the hardware detection software yielded average true positive and true negative rates of 92.7% and 96.9%, respectively. Conclusion: Updated segmentation and centerline estimation methods in addition to new gradient-based hardware detection software provide improved data integrity control and error-checking for automated clinical chest image quality characterization across multiple radiography systems.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

A Robust Method to Secure Multi-Inverter Grid Tied PV and Battery Energy Storage Systems Against Cyber Intrusions

This paper details a robust method to secure a multi-inverter grid tied system that interfaces photovoltaic (PV) and battery energy storage against potential cyber-attacks. The method can be applied to any third-party inverter systems without a need to modify their internal controls. A small random private excitation signal termed "watermark" is injected into the DC input voltage terminals (via a series transformer) connected to the PV/battery inverter system. An external robust cyber intrusion detector (CID) hardware consisting of a digital signal processor (DSP) generates the "watermark" and also receives the sensor signals that control the setpoints of the PV/battery grid tied system. The CID algorithm is shown to detect all possible cyber intrusions (such as false data injection(FDI)) on external sensor signals such as P and Q measured by a smart meter that control the overall system operation. The proposed CID computes online system ID and two variance tests in real time on each sensor signal and is able pinpoint intrusion location in a multi-inverter system. Results on a hardware in the loop (HIL) of a two-inverter grid connected system demonstrate effectiveness of the proposed CID system for FDI and unobservable FDI. Test results on a laboratory prototype will be discussed in the conference presentation.

Ibrahim, Hasan↗

Exploration of multifidelity UQ sampling strategies for computer network applications.

Network modeling is a powerful tool to enable rapid analysis of complex systems that can be challenging to study directly using physical testing. Here, two approaches are considered: emulation and simulation. The former runs real software on virtualized hardware, while the latter mimics the behavior of network components and their interactions in software. Although emulation provides an accurate representation of physical networks, this approach alone cannot guarantee the characterization of the system under realistic operative conditions. Operative conditions for physical networks are often characterized by intrinsic variability (payload size, packet latency, etc.) or a lack of precise knowledge regarding the network configuration (bandwidth, delays, etc.); therefore uncertainty quantification (UQ) strategies should be also employed. UQ strategies require multiple evaluations of the system with a number of evaluation instances that roughly increases with the problem dimensionality, i.e., the number of uncertain parameters. It follows that a typical UQ workflow for network modeling based on emulation can easily become unattainable due to its prohibitive computational cost. In this paper, a multifidelity sampling approach is discussed and applied to network modeling problems. The main idea is to optimally fuse information coming from simulations, which are a low-fidelity version of the emulation problem of interest, in order to decrease the estimator variance. By reducing the estimator variance in a sampling approach it is usually possible to obtain more reliable statistics and therefore a more reliable system characterization. Several network problems of increasing difficulty are presented. For each of them, the performance of the multifidelity estimator is compared with respect to the single fidelity counterpart, namely, Monte Carlo sampling. For all the test problems studied in this work, the multifidelity estimator demonstrated an increased efficiency with respect to MC.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗