Wu receives NSF CAREER award for power grid defense project
Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2022
MANHATTAN — A robust defense of our nation's power grid is as important as ever as cyber-data attacks become more sophisticated and common. Enhancing the resiliency of cyber-physical power grids under such attacks and providing system operators the tools they need to enhance situational awareness is essential.
This is the research focus of Hongyu Wu, Michelle Munson-Serban Simu Keystone research scholar and associate professor in the Mike Wiegers Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Kansas State University, who has received a $500,000 Faculty Early Career Development, or CAREER, Award from the National Science Foundation.
His project, "CAREER: Toward attack-resilient cyber-physical smart grids: moving target defense for data integrity attack detection, identification and mitigation," aims to provide tools to power system operators while also promoting public awareness and understanding of smart grid cybersecurity, contributing to power engineering education, and preparing a diverse learning community with requisite knowledge and skillsets to tackle the security challenges of future power grids.
"This CAREER project aims to provide a theoretical foundation and design guiding principles that will unlock the full potential of moving-target-defense approaches and significantly enhance the resiliency of cyber-physical power grids under cyber-data attacks," Wu said. "This project will develop novel optimization, graph theory, low-rank matrix theory and machine learning methods for optimal planning and operation of moving-target-defense devices, rapid detection, accurate identification and robust mitigation of cyber-data attacks."
Additionally, Wu said this project will transform existing bulk transmission system operations that rely on limited cyber-layer security mechanisms to proactive approaches using widely deployed smart devices.
