Projects

https://www.bluesciencepark.se/projekt/cissan-collective-intelligence-supported-by-security-aware-nodes/

https://www.bth.se/forskning/forskningsprojekt/cissan-collective-intelligence-supported-by-security-aware-nodes/ 

https://www.vinnova.se/en/p/collective-intelligence-supported-by-security-aware-nodes-sweden/ 

https://www.celticnext.eu/project-cissan/  

Proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) has fundamentally changed how different application environments, like homes, offices, infrastructure, smart buildings, or smart grids, are being used and operated. There is also a growing security need to support IoT systems. One of the main concerns is the impact that the different threats may have since attacks on IoT deployments could dramatically jeopardies IoT systems, people security, privacy and safety, while additionally IoT in itself can be used as an attack vector.

Widespread IoT networks are prone to similar malicious actions than other networks and devices, but physical tampering, injection and capturing of the nodes may be more probable in IoT networks than in other networks. Conventional security practices in IoT require substantial re-engineering due to technical constraints. Engineered-in security work is emphasized because the particularity of the Application Protocol Interfaces (APIs) available to users do not allow traditional security update mechanisms.

In this project, the aim is to build collective intelligence to the IoT network by the smart network nodes to enable a rich, diverse and wide ecosystem involving aspects such as devices, communications, interfaces, and people. Intelligent IoT networks should, e.g., notice tampered and injected devices, and they should recognize movements and capturing of their nodes. In addition, the IoT network should prevent its’ use as an attack surface.

Here, we distribute various intelligent security related functionalities to different network nodes. This means that each node has one or more cyber security functionalities. Nodes interact, as they normally do, with signaling and data traffic but also with AI traffic, to transfer security information to each node. The aim is to avoid that all the nodes need to have all the cyber security functionalities, but the network as a whole has the functionalities. The network has awareness = collective intelligence, and it distributes that to the nodes by AI signaling developed in the project. The result is a CISSAN IoT platform that enables secure IoT applications and solutions development, testing and validation. The platform will be validated in joint use cases from public transport, bank IoT network monitoring, smart grid IoT, push-to-talk communication services, and a use case that verifies security solution not covered by other use cases.

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Media coverage

1, 2, 

Digitalization is part of everyone’s lives, and during the last decade, we have seen technologies such as augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and extended reality (XR) develop. Further, there has been a tremendous development in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). These two trends will have an enormous impact on future digital societies, and the vision of an immersive, ubiquitous, and intelligent virtual space opens new opportunities for creating an enhanced digital world in which the users are in the center, so-called intelligent realities.

The ‘Human-Centered Intelligent Realities’ (HINTS) profile aims to develop concepts, principles, methods, algorithms, and tools for human-centered intelligent realities, in order to lead the way for future immersive, user-aware, and smart interactive digital environments. The project is centered around an ecosystem that combines the virtual-reality continuum paradigm and the communication-computing continuum paradigm to form a novel intelligent digital system.

The aim of the knowledge review is a comprehensive report on the current state and potential future of gamified virtual technologies for training in civil preparedness. Training methods today may lack empathy and realism, which hinders effective crisis preparation. They do not cover effective risk assessment and mitigation. Solutions need to be more personalised, accessible and location-independent for different groups. Traditional training methods are resource-intensive, limit the scope and frequency of exercises, and may provide insufficient support for team-based collaboration in simulated scenarios. Methods are needed to evaluate the effectiveness, safety and usability of technologies. This is crucial as artificial intelligence and digital interactions become more common in education. The report is expected to provide insights into how new technologies can provide effective, accessible and sustainable solutions for civil preparedness, improving society's resilience to emergencies. 

Over the past years, Sweden has seen a large increase in micro-producers, owners of the energy systems. That means more installations of low voltage distributed generators and energy production systems, such as solar panels, bioelectrical energy, wind energy etc., have been connected to traditional grids. The Swedish system is set-up in a way that a micro-producer can either consume the electricity the energy system produces or feed it into the grid. The electricity not used is automatically delivered.

Protect micro-grid system

But as we see more and more micro-producers, there is a raising challenge on how to protect the microgrid systems during operation, power balancing and communications between different distributed generators. It is, therefore, essential to develop scientific methods to ensure infrastructure automation and the decentralized application of energy production and distribution.

Develop blockchain solution

It is desirable to integrate the production and distribution of these low-voltage electric powers together with traditional power grids creating a common and secure power-sharing system. Therefore, in this project, we will develop blockchain based solutions that will provide a safe, reliable and efficient application of new low-voltage energy production and distribution that can be integrated into a regional or national power grid.

In order to evaluate the effectiveness, we are going to demonstrate a pilot simulation project based on the implementation of the proposed technology to test a secure storage and exchange of data in supporting the free trade of energy in smart grid (microgrid) in Sweden.

Will maximize energy production

If the project results prove the feasibility, this method can be widely used and add value to the current energy control system and will optimize renewable energy production, distribution and consumption. This new technology will provide fast, safe and precise solutions to support and coordinate the production and distribution of energy. This could in turn contribute to the environment (climate change) by maximizing energy production and consumption as well as minimizing energy loss.

Financed by

This project is financed by Energiforsk. 

Other information

Publication

The project focuses on the power grid and the overall goal is to develop models for a deepened understanding of risks in terms of dependencies between components and in terms of potential consequences of failures. Vital services, such as health care, water supply, food supply, and related information communication processes, depending on the reliable electrical power supply. The power grid is maintained by many operators and the interdependency is high and complex.  A local failure can lead to a cascading effect and, in the worst case, disrupt vital services. The models developed in this project will support the analysis of vulnerabilities and consequences. Moreover, they can be used to identify the root causes of failures and vulnerabilities and to identify cascading failure scenarios. The project also develops monitoring techniques, using the models together with multi-source data and information fusion algorithms in real-time simulations. Our proposed real-time simulation model gives operators an account of imminent cascading threats and failures in order to better prepare a corresponding response with appropriate counter-measures. 

The Elvira project develops time-based infrastructure dependency analysis for the power-grid to model risk assessment and resilience indexes, which assist decision makers in anticipating failures and their cascading effects.

The Elvira project develops time-based models and analysis methods to model electricity grid risk assessment and resilience index, to help decision-makers predict errors and their cascading effects.

The electricity infrastructure

Most socially important functions, such as health care, water supply, food supply and communication, depend on reliable electricity supply. The electricity grid is maintained by many different actors such as electricity producers, electricity distributors and various municipalities. These infrastructure components are integrated partly with each other and partly with components and services from other critical infrastructures and functions such as healthcare. The interdependence between the components is complex.

A failure of a component can lead to a domino effect and, in the worst case, cause errors in other infrastructures or interfere with vital functions, since access to, for example, heat, water, food and communication is dependent on access to electricity. The massive power outages that hit large parts of the US and Canada in 2003, California and Mexico in 2011 and India in 2012 are clear examples of how large sections of society can be knocked out by domino effects.

Our project examines five important issues:

We focus on electricity networks and develop models to get a complex and holistic view of the dependencies and consequences in critical infrastructures. We do this by applying information fusion algorithms to data from different types of sources, e.g. sensors, logs, citizens and functions. The goal is improved situational awareness and increased resilience. The methods and algorithms we develop form part of a framework that will be expanded with real-time simulation in future projects.


Support PhD thesis work

Yuning Jiang, Vulnerability Analysis for Critical Infrastructures, 2022. The thesis won the 2022 prize for the best dissertation by Skaraborg Akademin.


Media coverage


News, events and publications

On this page we list news, events and publications related to the project.

[in the news:  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 (IVA 100-list 2022) ]


Financed by

This project is financed by The European Union - The Internal Security Fund


Commercialization

https://www.his.se/forskning/informationsteknologi/distribuerade-realtidssystem/cps/ 

The research idea behind the project is to address the challenge and to provide technical solutions to understand and improve CPS-based resilience for critical infrastructure protection (CIP). The research is planned for a future EU-funded project application to collaborate with academic and industrial partners in the EU.

The increasing use of connected Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) in critical infrastructures (CI) not only enlarges the attack surface of CIs, but also increases the complexity to ensure elasticity in the event of accidents.

The research idea behind this project proposal is to address the challenge and to provide technical solutions to understand and improve CPS-based Resilience for Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP). The research is planned for a future EU-funded project application to collaborate with academic and industrial partners in the EU. Teams from Skövde University and Mälardalen University are doing joint work for this feasibility study for the future development of research projects.

Projektet utvärderar den praktiska användbarheten av de verktyg som utvecklats i EU ISF-projektet ELVIRA för att bedöma sårbarheten för IT-systemen för kritisk infrastruktur, särskilt kraftnät. Utvärderingen ska göras i samarbete med medelstora elnätsföretag.

Innovationsprojektet startar med att presentera ett standard generiskt kraft / IT-nätverk för experterna på Skövde Energi. Sedan representeras en del av Skövde Energis kraft / IT-nätverk i ELVIRA-verktygets nätverksmodeller.

Simuleringsverktyg ska bedöma sårbarheter

Under extraktionen av den nödvändiga inventeringen identifieras och avlägsnas brister i ELVIRA nätverksmodeller. Den resulterande nätverksmodellen överlämnas sedan till det cyber-fysiska simuleringsverktyget för ELVIRA för att bedöma nätverkets sårbarhet och den potentiella skadan av riktade cyberattacker.

Vi ska också samla in kraven för att importera / exportera verktyg för att integrera ELVIRA-verktyget med befintliga IT / lagerhanteringssystem hos kraftföretaget. Slutligen kommer vi också att tillämpa den onlinebaserade databasen som utvecklats i ELVIRA för att statiskt bedöma sårbarheten för IT-komponenterna hos kraftföretaget.

Bidra till ökad kapacitet för att hantera hot

Projektet fokuserar på kritisk infrastruktur. Målen inkluderar utveckling av modeller som identifierar beroenden, underlättar bedömningen av sårbarheter och utvärderar de övergripande konsekvenserna av misslyckande. Resultatet av detta projekt inkluderar ökade kapaciteter för att hantera hot mot elnätet samt verktyg för att hjälpa beslutsfattare att se beroenden i kritisk infrastruktur och förutse graciösa störningar och / eller deras kaskadeffekter.

Målet med valideringsprojektet är att testa om ELVIRA-verktyget (för närvarande en prototyp) kan utvecklas till en produkt som faktiskt är användbar för små och medelstora energiföretag.

  https://www.his.se/forskning/informationsteknologi/distribuerade-realtidssystem/smartpark/ 

Cutting-edge Internet of Things (IoT) devices are increasingly deployed in urban environments creating new data streams, which could be exploited to deliver novel cloud-based services. Connected vehicles and road-infrastructure data are leveraged in this project to alleviate parking and induced traffic-congestion issues. The proposed SmartPark algorithm maximizing parking availability prediction, while minimizing the journey duration to the selected parking lot.

The increased volume of individuals in a limited land area to seek some activity provides grounds for a parking problem to arise. Ultrasonic and magnetic sensors are already mounted in parking lots to detect the availability of a parking spot in parking lots. The sensor conveys the parking-spot availability information in real time to a parking system, which communicates this information to a Cloud-based service that is further exploited by third-party parking-service providers (PSPs).

This trend is part of the current Internet- of-Things (IoT) evolution that is powering the reach to contextual information of a wide range of future smart-city sub-systems. The streams of data that literally "senses the city" is increasingly driving open Cloud-services to stimulate technology and business innovations.

Service providers

Smart parking service providers are potential beneficiaries of this evolution, particularly with the expected progression towards connected and driverless vehicles. These services are expected to be exploited for better infrastructure management and new added-value services to both users, city managers and businesses. Smart parking service providers are potential beneficiaries of this evolution, particularly with the expected progression towards connected and driverless vehicles. In this foreseeable context, parking land is a commodity used by the real-estate owner and/or by tenants for a fee, while new parking-service provider (PSP) intermediaries supply necessary IoT infrastructures to bring that parking information to a Cloud service.

 Cloud service

Parking as A Service is driven by IoT integration in traffic subsystems of smart cities. Outsourced parking-facility to a PSP generate new revenue streams by relaying parking-lot availabilities along with congestion-aware navigation services to vehicles. This is where our proposed SmartPark approach comes into action to run as a Cloud service using PSP-provided data, offering an available spot in a parking lot, as well as a congestion-aware navigation route.

Education projects:

Rapidly increased digitization of industry and society creates increased competitiveness, resilience and long-term sustainability. Digitization, however, requires new skills from professionals in all industries, while the average age is increasing and is higher than in competing countries and regions. The lack of young people makes continuing education and lifelong learning crucial for continued Swedish competitiveness. Vinnova's strategic innovation program Produktion2030 and 13 universities within the Swedish Production Academy have developed the continuing education program Ingenjör4.0 to support the industry. It is a modularized training offering with a focus on industrial digitization for professionals with an engineering background. The program was successfully tested with 60 professionals in 2020.

The project proposal "Ingenjör4.0 - Upscaling" is to be central to the digital transformation of industry in Sweden. The project goal is the continuing education of at least 1,000 people per year. The project creates innovative, large-scale, lifelong learning among industry professionals.

"Ingenjör4.0 upscaling" mobilizes educational resources at 13 different Swedish universities. The national collaboration produces effects beyond the continuing education efforts, e.g. to division of labour, specialisation, innovation and quality improvement at the universities. The project includes "Policy-lab Ingenjör4.0" for follow-up research, impact analysis, demonstration and development of financing models for national investments in lifelong learning. Employer organizations and trade unions strongly support the development of the project Engineer 4.0 - Upscaling.


   - 1st stage: 2015-2016, mutual visiting

   - 2nd stage: 2016-2017, teaching exchange


in the news: 1, 2, 3, 4