Credit: CTL

In May 2024, NIST researchers were invited to provide several presentations at the 7^th IEEE International Conference on Industrial Cyber-Physical Systems (ICPS) in St. Louis, MO. The ICPS is held annually, and brings together industry experts, researchers, and academics to present and discuss innovative solutions, research results, and initiatives related to cyber-physical systems and their applications. Dr. David Wollman, Deputy Division Chief of NIST’s Smart Connected Systems Division, gave one of ICPS’s Industry Forum keynote presentations, providing an overview titled “Cyber-Physical Systems and Industrial Internet of Things Program Initiatives at NIST.” His talk covered NIST efforts across a broad range of CPS/IoT areas from devices and systems to operational technology (OT) infrastructures to at-scale integrated smart cities and communities, and he provided insight into CPS and IoT terminology and future directions. Dr. Mohamed Kashef (Hany) presented two papers, “On the Impact of TIG Welding Interference on Industrial Wi-Fi Networks: Modeling of Empirical Data and Analytical Studying of Coexistence” and “An Analytical Evaluation for Software-based TSN in Industrial Wi-Fi Networks.” In the first paper, he described measurements of a Tungsten Inert Gas (TIG) welding station in a NIST machine shop, with significant interference power in the 2.4 GHz band commonly used by the IEEE 802.11 networks. He also presented a modeling procedure for non-communications industrial wireless interference to recreate the signal in a lab environment and analytically study its impact on operational industrial wireless Wi-Fi communications systems. In the second paper, Dr. Kashef (Hany) presented NIST work on wireless time-sensitive networking (WTSN), including time-critical traffic streams’ scheduling to coexist with the best-effort traffic over the same Wi-Fi network. In addition, Kang Lee presented a paper titled “Hardware-In-The-Loop (HIL) Simulation-based Interoperability Testing Method of Smart Sensors in Smart Grids” including the testing method and evaluation of smart sensors and IEC 61850-0-2 merging units for monitoring, protection, and control applications in the electric power grid.