Automated Situational Awareness Technologies for Robust and Resilient Fossil Energy Power via Multivariate Analysis

Ridgetop Group, Inc. and the University of Arizona will deliver a cyber-secure condition based maintenance (CBM) solution for legacy fossil fuel based power plants. The technology consists of methods to “mine” and condition existing sensor data available in the plant’s critical subsystems, send the data using Blockchain encryption methods, then application of multi-variate analysis of the sensor data streams against prescribed limits to detect operational anomalies and possible intrusions from external threats. Blockchains will be developed for data protection, and multivariate statistical methods will be invented to analyze multiple sensor data to assess state of health and discover anomalies. Difference method variance and their combinations will be developed and compared in a simulation testbed. Our vendor- independent solution will provide an extensible CBM infrastructure to legacy power plants that otherwise would be neglected due to the age or uniqueness of the equipment in use. For example, a plant may have a turbine from one supplier, a generator from another, and an instrumentation cluster provided by yet a third supplier. Ridgetop’s open Internet of Things (IoT) smart sensor approach will support on-going monitoring of key assets to identify anomalies in plant systems or subsystems. Upon reception and processing of incoming sensor data, anomalies are quickly identified, with alerting made by a companion CBM monitoring platform. Sensor data integrity is assured through the application of open-ledger Blockchain technology to avoid any possibility of sensor data corruption from external threats. After the design of experiments is completed, the Simulink power plant model testbed and Blockchain- enabled sensor streams will be constructed. The tools will be integrated, the methodology tested, different methods compared, and best alternatives are chosen. Based on the results, countermeasures will be developed and tested. And finally, all works will be documented and final report prepared.