Collaborative Research: CISE-MSI: DP: CCF: SHF: MSI/HSI Research Capacity Building via Secure and Efficient Hardware Implementation of Cellular Computational Networks

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).

As use of renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar power, continue to increase, distributed Artificial Intelligence (AI) is needed to synthesize the large amounts of predictive use indicators, such as weather data and Internet of Things (IoT) sensor data, in order to allow the electric power grid to continue to operate reliably with the high levels of variability and uncertainty associated with renewable energy sources. Since this requires real-time processing, a secure and efficient hardware platform is needed; AI software alone is not sufficient.

The Cellular Computational Network (CCN) is a distributed AI framework, with a brain-inspired neural network architecture, which is suitable for critical networked systems, such as the electric power grid. Hence, utilizing secure and efficient CCN hardware implementations for power system applications will accelerate operations to achieve a real-time performance guarantee on representative large-scale networks without compromising accuracy, and will simultaneously provide resiliency to cyber-physical system attacks, thus enhancing sustainable and secure power system operation.

This project develops both synchronous logic and asynchronous logic hardware implementations of CCN cells and overall CCN systems using reconfigurable Field Programmable Gate Arrays, and explores approximate computing opportunities for application to CCNs. The resulting CCN hardware systems will be tested via integration into Clemson University’s various Real-Time Power and Intelligent Systems (RTPIS) Laboratory testbeds, including for wide area predictive state estimation of power system variables, solving dynamic power flows, and predictions of spatial-temporal wind speed/power, solar irradiance/power, and energy consumption of buildings/rooms.

Furthermore, this project partners a Minority/Hispanic Serving Institution, Texas A&M University – Kingsville (TAMUK), with Clemson University to involve many more TAMUK Computer Science faculty with RTPIS Lab related research, and establishes a pipeline of high-performing Hispanic students from TAMUK to pursue Computer Engineering or Computer Science PhD degrees.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.