Radio Frequency over Fibre Optics Repeater for Mission-Critical Communications: Design, Execution and Test

This paper presents a technical solution that addresses mission-critical communications by extending the radio frequency coverage area using a flexible and scalable architecture. One of the main objectives is to improve both the reaction time and the coordination between mission-critical practitioners, also called public protection and disaster relief users, that operate in emergency scenarios. Mission-critical services such as voice and data should benefit from reliable communication systems that offer high availability, prioritization and flexible architecture. In this paper, we considered Terrestrial Trunked Radio (TETRA), the mobile radio standard used for mission-critical communications, as it has been designed in this respect and is widely used by first responder organizations. Even if RF coverage is designed before network deployment and continuously updated during the lifetime of the technology, some white areas may exist and should be covered by supplementary base stations or repeaters. The model presented in this paper is an optical repeater for TETRA standard that can offer up to 52.6 dB downlink, 65.6 dB uplink gain and up to 3.71 km coverage distance in a radiating cable installation scenario. The design in not limited, as it can be extended to several different mobile radio standards using the same principle. Flexibility and scalability attributes are taken into consideration, as they can build a cost-effective deployment considering both capital and operational expenditures.

Migration from DevOps to DevSecOps - A complete migration framework, challenges and evaluation

DevOps development strategy is based on lean and agile principles and developed to ensure faster delivery. It ensures the collaboration of all stakeholders in the software development process and incorporates user’s feedback in a faster manner. This strategy is developed to guarantee customer satisfaction, increased business value, reduced time for bagging the feedback and adjusting the deliverables. They identified a requirement of prioritizing security in DevOps and started conferring about security to be embedded in DevOps. This introduced a mission-critical issue in many organizations as it requires breaking down of the barriers of operations and security team and review of many security policies in place. The challenge is to find the best way in DevOps can still perform Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery after implanting security in a DevOps environment. This paper introduces a complete migration framework from DevOps to DevSecOps.This paper also identifies the attributes on which the migration framework can be evaluated.

XAISec - Explainable AI Security: An Early Discussion Paper on New Multidisciplinary Subfield In Pursuit of Building Trust in Security of AI systems

Today's Artificial Intelligence systems are at the epicenter of security threats across industries. Attackers are trying to turn AI systems against the organization and society, intending to cause harm at various levels. Security, along with the explainability of AI, is a cornerstone for Digital Trust and Trustworthy AI. AI-based systems provide new attack surfaces, and adversaries can utilize attack surfaces to construct attacks to exploit vulnerabilities. Mission-critical systems using AI need to address the crucial problem of AI Security(AISec) and Explainable AI (XAI). In the early version of the discussion paper, we propose the new sub-field of Explainable AI Security (XAISec) at the intersection of AISec, XAI, and Explainable Security (XSec) for Mission-critical systems. We propose that XAISec should aim to explain AI Security's workings (justification of attack and transparency about defense) at an appropriate level considering multiple aspects. XAISec is a niche multidisciplinary greenfield with an ascertained need and validated using informal interview settings. We invite constructive criticism, collaboration, and contribution to jump-start the sub-field. We believe that with XAISec as an integral part of AI, AI can impact millions of lives across the globe, enabling smarter, sustainable, and evolutionary transformations.

SIC Aided K-Repetition for Mission-Critical MTC in Cell-Free Massive MIMO

<div>In this paper, a successive interference cancellation (SIC) aided K-repetition scheme is proposed to support contention-based mission-critical machine-type communication (MTC) in cell-free (CF) massive multiple-input and multipleoutput (MIMO) systems. With the assistance of a tailored deep neural network (DNN) based preamble multiplicity estimator, the proposed SIC in K-repetition is capable of fully cancelling the interference signals, which leads to the reliability improvement in CF massive MIMO. Simulation results show the accuracy of preamble multiplicity estimation by the proposed DNN, and</div><div>demonstrate that, compared to the existing schemes, the proposed SIC scheme can achieve an improvement of two orders of magnitude in terms of block error rate (BLER) under a given latency constraint. Moreover, when the number of access points (APs) is sufficiently large, employing the proposed SIC scheme provides a great potential to meet ultra-reliable and low-latency requirements, e.g., 10^-5BLER and 1 ms access latency, for crowd mission-critical applications, which is far beyond the capabilities of the existing schemes.</div>

SIC Aided K-Repetition for Mission-Critical MTC in Cell-Free Massive MIMO

<div>In this paper, a successive interference cancellation (SIC) aided K-repetition scheme is proposed to support contention-based mission-critical machine-type communication (MTC) in cell-free (CF) massive multiple-input and multipleoutput (MIMO) systems. With the assistance of a tailored deep neural network (DNN) based preamble multiplicity estimator, the proposed SIC in K-repetition is capable of fully cancelling the interference signals, which leads to the reliability improvement in CF massive MIMO. Simulation results show the accuracy of preamble multiplicity estimation by the proposed DNN, and</div><div>demonstrate that, compared to the existing schemes, the proposed SIC scheme can achieve an improvement of two orders of magnitude in terms of block error rate (BLER) under a given latency constraint. Moreover, when the number of access points (APs) is sufficiently large, employing the proposed SIC scheme provides a great potential to meet ultra-reliable and low-latency requirements, e.g., 10^-5BLER and 1 ms access latency, for crowd mission-critical applications, which is far beyond the capabilities of the existing schemes.</div>

On the Need to Create Intelligent Control Systems for Systems with a Critical Mission

Происходящие в мире события свидетельствуют о возрастании угрозы перехвата управления системами с критической миссией (СКМ). Приводятся конкретные примеры инцидентов, один из них — массовые отключения электроэнергии в Венесуэле. Обосновывается необходимость разработки технологии создания цифровых систем управления, обеспечивающей парирование угрозы перехвата управления и нештатного функционирования систем с критической миссией. В основе этой технологии — концепция цифровых двойников объектов управления цифровых систем управления этими объектами, включая все аппаратные и программные компоненты, а также интеллектуальные средства самоконтроля и самокоррекции функционирования элементной базы, вычислительной и коммуникационной техники, базового и прикладного программного обеспечения. There is an ongoing threat of control interception in mission-critical systems (MCS). Specific examples of such incidents are presented, one of them is the massive power outages in Venezuela. We specify the reasons for creating an approach to developing digital control systems for MCS resistant to control interception and abnormal functioning. This technology is based on the digital twin concept. A twin represents all the hardware and software components, as includes smart tools for the hardware, core and application software self-monitoring and self-correction. &nbsp;

Seismic testing of a static power static transfer switch

This test report documents seismic qualification testing of a Static Power Static Transfer Switch (STS). The STS is a mission-critical unit that will be installed at Eareckson Air Station (EAS), on the island of Shemya, Alaska. Two units were built, one of which was tested on the ERDC-CERL shake table on 10 November 2020, and the other delivered to EAS for installation. This report presents details on the STS configuration, seismic tests conducted, and the performance of the unit. The unit passed the final seismic test and can now confidently be installed at the EAS.

How Do I Assess Our Cyber Risk?

The question “How do I assess our cyber risk?” addresses how to identify and characterize cyber risk unique to an organization’s critical systems, networks, and data. The chapter begins with a case study about a cyberattack on Ukraine’s electric grid. It details risk assessment for three types of critical systems: mission-critical systems, business-critical systems, and safety-critical systems. It explains the three types of networks critical to many organizations: business and administrative networks, operational and service delivery networks, and communication networks. In outlining the “CIA triad,” it shows how cyber risk can be characterized as a confidentiality, integrity, or availability issue relating to digital assets. Further, it describes how to assess the importance of different digital assets and how to prioritize them using a business impact analysis (BIA). The chapter concludes with real-world Embedded Endurance strategy lessons Rosenbach gained in Saudi Arabia in the wake of one of the world’s most destructive cyberattacks.