Optimization of Stealthwatch Network Security System for the Detection and Mitigation of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Attack: Application to Smart Grid System

The Smart Grid is an enhancement of the traditional grid system and employs new technologies and sophisticated communication techniques for electrical power transmission and distribution. The Smart Grid’s communication network shares information about status of its several integrated IEDs (Intelligent Electronic Devices). However, the IEDs connected throughout the Smart Grid, open opportunities for attackers to interfere with the communications and utilities resources or take clients’ private data. This development has introduced new cyber-security challenges for the Smart Grid and is a very concerning issue because of emerging cyber-threats and security incidents that have occurred recently all over the world. The purpose of this research is to detect and mitigate Distributed Denial of Service [DDoS] with application to the Electrical Smart Grid System by deploying an optimized Stealthwatch Secure Network analytics tool. In this paper, the DDoS attack in the Smart Grid communication networks was modeled using Stealthwatch tool. The simulated network consisted of Secure Network Analytic tools virtual machines (VMs), electrical Grid network communication topology, attackers and Target VMs. Finally, the experiments and simulations were performed, and the research results showed that Stealthwatch analytic tool is very effective in detecting and mitigating DDoS attacks in the Smart Grid System without causing any blackout or shutdown of any internal systems as compared to other tools such as GNS3, NeSSi2, NISST Framework, OMNeT++, INET Framework, ReaSE, NS2, NS3, M5 Simulator, OPNET, PLC & TIA Portal management Software which do not have the capability to do so. Also, using Stealthwatch tool to create a security baseline for Smart Grid environment, contributes to risk mitigation and sound security hygiene.

Rapid Prototype with Field Gate (A Design and Implementation of Stepper Motor Using FPGA)

This paper presents the design and implementation of a Stepper Motor using Nexys2 circuit board based on a Xilinx Spartan 3E Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) device with VHDL code. The algorithm implemented on FPGA allows a substantial decrease of the equivalent processing time developed by different velocity controllers. The Stepper Speed control is achieved using VHDL code, and the hardware digital circuit is designed for a programmable rotational stepper motor using VHDL as a tool and FPGA as a target technology. The 50 MHZ provided by the starter kit is divided to obtain the necessary delay time between the motor phases that ranges between 2 - 10 m seconds. Though output selections, the direction of rotation of the stepper motor besides the magnitude of the angle of movement and the rotation speed can be controlled. The major advantage of using reconfigurable hardware (FPGA) in implementing the Stepper Motor instead of a discrete digital component is that it makes modifications to the design easy and quick and also, the total design hence represents an embedded system (works without computer). The total programmable hardware design that controlled on the stepper motor movement, occupied an area that did not exceed 12% of the chip resources.

Performance and Efficiency Simulation Study of a Smart-Grid Connected Photovoltaic System

The availability of non-renewable energy sources such as crude oil, natural gas, coal etc., is fast diminishing. So the renewable energy sources such as solar, hydropower, geothermal, wind, tidal energy, are gaining more and more importance. Many new developments to convert these renewable energy sources into usable forms are taking place. Most renewable energy sources are used to produce electricity. In this paper, a performance and efficiency simulation study of a smart-grid connected photovoltaic system using Chroma DC programmable power supply, AC programmable source and an Aurora Inverter is proposed. The simulation is performed in MATLAB environment where the Current-Voltage (I-V) and Power-Voltage (P-V) curves from the solar array simulator are generated and plotted. The proposed topology has been verified with satisfactory results. In addition, temperature and irradiance effects on I-V and P-V characteristic curves are verified. Also, the efficiency curves of the photovoltaic grid interface inverter are generated in the study. The MATLAB code developed in this paper is a valuable tool for design engineers comparing different inverters, calculating the optimum efficiency of a given inverter type.

Anti-Windup Digital Control Design for Time-Delayed Analog Nonlinear Systems Using Approximated Scalar Sign Function

This paper describes an approximated-scalar-sign-function-based anti-windup digital control design for analog nonlinear systems subject to input constraints. As input saturation occurs, the non-smooth saturation constraint is modeled with the approximated scalar sign function which is a smooth nonlinear function. The resulting nonlinear model is further linearized at any operating point with the optimal linearization technique, and Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR) is then applied for a state-feedback controller optimal for each operating point. As input saturation is encountered, an iterative procedure is developed to adjust control gains by systematically updating LQR weighting matrices until the inputs lie within the saturation limits. Through global digital redesign, the analog LQR controller is converted to an equivalent digital one for keeping the essential control performance, and moreover, delay compensation is taken into account during digital redesign for compensating the potential time delays in a control loop. The swing-up and stabilization control of single rotary inverted pendulum system is used to illustrate and verify the proposed method.