CyberPELS: Cyber and Hardware Security for Power Electronics in a Changing World

Historically, electric power generation and delivery were largely unidirectional, with centralized power stations sending power to load centers via transmission and distribution systems. But in the modern power grid with the advent of power electronics based Distributed Generation (DG) systems, Energy Storage Systems (ESS), and electric transportation, multidirectional power flows have become possible. These components are also part of a complex communication web. Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition Systems (SCADA), DG and ESS dispatch systems, and consumer devices such as home monitoring systems can continuously monitor and control power electronic devices autonomously or with human input.

Power Electronic applications such as electric vehicles (EV) – both personal and public transportation, EV charging infrastructure, critical loads such as data center power supplies are also part of the communication web. Security researchers have already demonstrated vulnerabilities in vehicles by remotely disabling moving vehicles on the highway. Power converters in home and commercial charging stations also provide means to communicate through the internet, opening further possibilities for remote manipulation.

The modern architecture of power, communication, transportation and critical load infrastructure present unique security challenges. Malign actors or entities might now destabilize this highly connected power infrastructure through (a) deliberate injection of false setpoint commands or feedback signals (b) Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks on power electronic converters (c) compromising controller firmware in power converters (d) introduction of hard-to-detect and malicious Very Large Scale Integrated (VLSI) components into controller hardware.
These potential attack vectors have led to research and development in secure power electronic systems, hardened via software and hardware means.

Somasundaram Essakiappan (S’10-M’14) received the B.E. degree in electrical engineering from the College of Engineering Guindy, Chennai, India, and the M.S. degree from Texas A&M University, College Station, USA, in 2007 and 2010. He obtained the Ph.D. degree in 2014 from Texas A&M University specializing in power electronics for distributed energy resources integration. He is currently with the University of North Carolina Charlotte, where he is EPIC Teaching Professor and Duke Energy Suite Power Labs Manager. His research interests include power electronics for renewable energy grid integration, modeling, analysis and simulation of power electronics in the power grid, cybersecurity and hardware security of power electronics, and power quality issues. He has been involved in industry, state and federal government funded programs on vulnerability of power systems to cyber intrusions into phasor measurement units, development of open and secure platforms for power electronic controllers, development and demonstration of power distribution management systems to improve grid resiliency.
Dr. Essakiappan has served in the Power Electronics Society Young Professionals Committee since 2014, and he has been the Chair of the Committee since 2017. He also serves on the Mentorship committee and Digital Media & Education committee of PELS. In addition, he was the Publication chair and TPC co-chair of Symposium on Power Electronics for Distributed Generation (PEDG) in 2018.

H. Alan Mantooth received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Arkansas in 1985 and 1986, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1990. He then joined Analogy, a startup company in Oregon, where he focused on semiconductor device modeling and the research and development of modeling tools and techniques. In 1998, he joined the faculty of the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, where he currently holds the rank of Distinguished Professor. His research interests now involve analog and mixed-signal IC design & CAD, semiconductor device modeling, power electronics, power electronics packaging, and cybersecurity. Dr. Mantooth helped establish the National Center for Reliable Electric Power Transmission (NCREPT) at the UA in 2005. Professor Mantooth serves as the Executive Director for NCREPT as well as two of its centers of excellence: the NSF Industry/University Cooperative Research Center on GRid-connected Advanced Power Electronic Systems (GRAPES) and the Cybersecurity Center on Secure, Evolvable Energy Delivery Systems (SEEDS) funded by the U.S. Department of Energy. In 2015, he also helped to establish the University of Arkansas’ first NSF Engineering Research Center entitled Power Optimization for Electro-Thermal Systems (POETS) that will focus on high power density systems for transportation applications. Dr. Mantooth holds the 21st Century Research Leadership Chair in Engineering.
Dr. Mantooth served as President for the IEEE Power Electronics Society in 2017-18 and is now Immediate Past-President for 2019-20. Dr. Mantooth is a Fellow of IEEE, a member of Tau Beta Pi and Eta Kappa Nu, and registered professional engineer in Arkansas.

Madhav Manjrekar, Senior Member of IEEE, is an Associate Professor at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte. He also serves as an Assistant Director of the Energy Production & Infrastructure Center (EPIC), a research center founded by industry champions such as Duke Energy, EPRI, and Westinghouse at the university.
Named as an e4 Carolinas Emerging Leader in Energy in 2015, Dr. Manjrekar has led technology and innovation teams in the areas of energy and power systems for more than 15 years. Prior to joining academia in 2012, he worked as the Vice President of Global Research and Innovation at Vestas (the wind turbine company), and previously has held various leadership and management positions at Siemens, Eaton and ABB.
Dr. Manjrekar holds 10 US and international patents, has published over 60 journal and conference papers and has received multiple IEEE prize paper awards. He has also served on various task forces, including High Mega-Watt Leadership Team of National Institute of Standards and Technology, the Smart Grid Task Force of North American Electric Reliability Corporation, IEEE Standard P2030, and on review panels for ARPA-E, US Department of Energy, and the National Science Foundation.
Dr. Manjrekar’s research interests are in applications of power electronics in utility power systems and variable speed motor drives, interfaces for renewable power generation and energy storage, smart grids, and cyber vulnerability of electric infrastructure.
Dr. Madhav Manjrekar received his B.E. degree from Government College of Engineering, Pune, India, his M.Tech. from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, M.S. from Montana State University,
Bozeman, Montana, and Ph.D. from University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin, in 1993, 1995, 1997, and 1999 respectively.

Taesic Kim (S’10-M’15) received the B.S. degree in Electronics Engineering from Changwon National University, Changwon, Korea, in 2008 and the M.S. and Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering from the University of Nebraska—Lincoln, USA in 2012 and 2015, respectively. In 2009, He was with the New and Renewable Energy Research Group of Korea Electrotechnology Research Institute, Changwon, South Korea. He was with Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, Cambridge, MA, USA in 2013. He is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Texas A&M University-Kingsville. He directs the cyber-physical power and energy systems (CPPES) group and focuses on research in energy IoT, power electronics, cyber and physical security, blockchain, and intelligence algorithms for power and energy systems. He holds 2 U.S. patents and co-authored more than 40 papers in refereed journals and IEEE conference proceedings in the field of CPPES.
He is a Cyber Physical Security Steering Committee for IEEE PELS and a Guest Associate Editor of the IEEE Journal of Emerging and Selective Topics in Power Electronics: Special Issue on “Cybersecurity of Power Electronics through Hardware Hardening”. He is a recipient of the Myron Zucker Student-Faculty Grant Award from IEEE IAS, the Microsoft Azure Award, the Best Paper Prize (1st place) of the 2017 IEEE International Conference on Electro Information Technology, and the First Prize Award in the 2013 IEEE IAS Graduate Student Thesis Contest.