Smart grid includes two interdependent infrastructures: power transmission and distribution network, and the supporting telecommunications network. Complex interactions among these infrastructures lead to new pathways for attack and failure propagation that are currently not well understood. This innovative project takes a holistic multilevel approach to understand and characterize the interdependencies between these two infrastructures, and devise mechanisms to enhance their robustness.

While U.S. manufacturers are investing tremendous efforts and resources to regain the power and growth of manufacturing, they are confronted by a set of critical and challenging issues on the workforce. Specifically, (1) lack of workforce with advanced training and skills; (2) need for rapid, smart, and individualized training to achieve workforce agility; and (3) on-the-job personal assistance to improve worker performance, safety and comfort.

The VISualization of Terrestrial and Aquatic Systems (VISTAS) team, an NSF/BIO/ABI-funded collaboration among environmental-, computer-, and social-scientists, has integrated new technologies and computer science research into terrain visualization software for environmental scientists.  The system allows scientists to overlay 2D data onto 3D elevation maps to emphasize landscape topography and better understand how terrain affects ecological processes.  VISTAS also provides animations over time, fly-throughs, and analytics.

The goal of this project is to create a scalable and robust cyber-physical system (CPS) framework for the observation and control of the functional interdependencies between bridge structures (stationary physical systems) and trucks (mobile physical agents). A CPS framework (Figure 1) is being developed to monitor and control trucks within a single highway corridor to manage the imposed loads and the consumption of structural life by trucks on highway infrastructure including bridges.

Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) are being increasingly deployed in critical infrastructures such as electric-power, water, transportation, and other networks. These deployments are facilitating real-time monitoring and closed-loop control by exploiting the advances in wireless sensor-actuator networks, the internet of “everything,” data-driven analytics, and machine-to-machine interfaces. CPS operations depend on the synergy of computational and physical components.