Technology Trending: collaborative autonomy cybersecurity, textile power patch, ‘tungsten nacre’ for fusion

Skywing -a new open source collaborative autonomy-based solution for power grids, powering wearables with a textile ‘patch’ and seashell inspired research for fusion materials are in the week’s technology radar.

Skywing – an open source ‘collaborative autonomy’ cybersecurity solution

The new Skywing software, which has been developed at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, is designed to enable collaborative autonomy applications for the electricity grids and other critical infrastructures such as pipelines.

Collaborative autonomy is in essence a technique to ‘teach’ networked devices to self-organise into a collective whole to monitor and defend itself and function the way it’s supposed to.

Thus no single device or control point can compromise the entire system or precipitate network failure and an adversary would need to compromise many different devices rather than just one to achieve the same objective.

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In the power grid there are many digitised components, from distributed energy resources to smart meters and sensors and these typically rely on a single control centre for analysis and decision making.

However, these control centres also offer a cybersecurity single point of failure, explains computational mathematician Colin Ponce of Global Security’s E Program.

“Collaborative autonomy can monitor the system, detect improper commands, isolate compromised devices or control centres and protect system efficiency and stability so it keeps operating the way it’s supposed to.”

Skywing provides an automated search-and-acquire functionality for devices to find data. To perform tasks with the data, Skywing also offers a set of asynchronous consensus algorithms that allows devices to ‘gossip’ back and forth with each other until they come to an agreement on a solution. Users can then apply these algorithms as building blocks to construct more advanced applications.

Powering wearables with a textile ‘patch’

Powering wearable technology is challenged with the need for the power pack to be as small and compact as possible while also being able to deliver sufficient power output.

Drexel University researchers are now one step closer to making wearable textile technology a reality, with the development of a flexible supercapacitor patch.

Using MXene, a ceramic like material composed of metal carbides or nitrides discovered at Drexel in 2011, the researchers were able to demonstrate charging of the supercapacitor in minutes and its ability to power a microcontroller temperature sensor and radio communication of data for almost two hours.

“This is a significant development for wearable technology,” says Yury Gogotsi, professor in Drexel’s College of Engineering, who co-authored the study.

“To fully integrate technology into fabric, we must also be able to seamlessly integrate its power source – our invention shows the path forward for textile energy storage devices.”

The study builds on previous research that looked at the durability, electric conductivity and energy storage capacity of MXene-functionalized textiles. The latest work shows that in addition to its power capabilities, it also can withstand the rigours of being a textile.

Other advantages of MXene over other materials are its natural conductivity and ability to disperse in water as a stable colloidal solution, which means textiles can easily be coated with the product without using chemical additives and additional production steps.

Seashells inspire search for fusion reactor materials

The high temperatures required for nuclear fusion to take place, upwards of 100 million ^oC, places special demands on materials for fusion reactors.

Of all the elements on Earth, tungsten has one of the highest melting points, which makes it a particularly attractive material for use in fusion reactors. However, it can also be very brittle. But mixing tungsten with small amounts of other metals, such as nickel and iron, creates an alloy that is tougher than tungsten alone while retaining its high melting temperature.

With a particular hot-rolling thermomechanical treatment, microstructures can be produced in the tungsten heavy alloys that mimic the structure of nacre, or mother-of-pearl, in seashells and which is known to exhibit extraordinary strength in addition to its iridescent colours.

Now for the first time researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Virginia Tech have investigated the structure, geometry and chemistry of this ‘tungsten nacre’, showing how its strength comes from the bond between two dissimilar phases, a ‘hard’ phase of almost pure tungsten and a ‘ductile’ phase containing a mixture of nickel, iron, and tungsten.

With this information, the researchers are armed to further model the various properties in order to optimise them for safety and longevity in fusion applications.