CS Forum: Ana Goulart
Title: Cyber-physical Test bed for Assessment, Testing, and Validation of Security Schemes and Emerging Technologies for Smart Grid
Place: Odeion TUAS
Time: 14:15-15:00,
Coffee from 14:00
Host: Prof Mario Di Francesco
Abstract
To understand security vulnerabilities of communication protocols used in power systems, a real-time framework can be developed to conduct vulnerability studies. The framework should implement protection mechanisms against vulnerabilities and study their effectiveness. In this seminar, a real-time cyber-physical framework or test bed is presented. It integrates a real-time power system simulator and a communication system simulator to study the cyber and physical system vulnerabilities in smart power grids. The power system simulation is implemented using the Real-Time Digital Simulator (RTDS®) power grid simulator, with LabVIEW and PXI modules that simulate the supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system and intelligent electronic devices (IEDs). The communication system simulation is implemented using Opnet’s System-in-the-Loop (SITL) simulator and open source Linux tools and servers. Results of two cyber-attacks on the Modbus/TCP protocol are discussed and improvements to the test bed for protocol attack detection and mitigation are discussed.
Short Bio
Ana Elisa Goulart received a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the Federal School of Engineering of Itajuba - Brazil (EFEI) in 1992. After working at IBM and Compaq Computer, she moved to the United States in 1997 where she earned a M.Sc. in Computer Engineering at North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, followed by a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech, Atlanta, Georgia, in 2005.
She is currently an Associate Professor in the Electronic Systems Engineering Technology program at Texas A&M University, in College Station, Texas. Her research interests include protocols for real-time communications, IP-based emergency communications, last-mile communication links for the Smart Grid, and network security. Dr. Goulart is a member of the IEEE Communications Society and the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE).