Georgia Tech

Monitoring global lightning strikes could help detect cyber attacks on the U.S. electrical grid, according to Georgia Institute of Technology researchers who have a patent pending to do just that.

Lightning strikes roughly 3.5 million times per day on average. Each and every strike creates an electrical path miles tall that emits a very low frequency radio signal. Those signals bounce off the upper atmosphere and can be detected virtually anywhere in the world, explains Morris Cohen, an associate professor in the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

In the coming months, researchers from Georgia Tech will reveal the results of testing on a robot called the HoneyBot, designed to help detect, monitor, misdirect or even identify illegal network intruders. The device is built to attract cyber criminals targeting factories or other critical infrastructure facilities, and the underlying technology can be adapted to other types of systems, including the electric grid.

The HoneyBot represents a convergence of robotics with the cyber realm. The diminutive robot on four wheels essentially acts as a honeypot, or a decoy to lure criminal hackers and keep them busy long enough for cybersecurity experts to learn more about them, which ultimately could unmask the hackers.

Georgia Tech Applied Research Corp., Atlanta, Georgia, has been awarded a not-to-exceed $17,295,000 undefinitized contract action for reactivation of the band 8 transmitter associated with the AN/ALQ-161A defensive avionics system supporting the B-1B aircraft. This contract provides for band 8 reactivation prototypes and testing. Work will be performed in Atlanta, Georgia, and is expected to be complete by June 30, 2019. This award is the result of a sole-source acquisition. Fiscal year 2018 operations and maintenance funds in the amount of $8,645,771 are being obligated at the time of award. The Electronic Warfare Contracting Branch, Robins Air Force Base, Georgia, is the contracting activity. 

Georgia Tech Research Institute, Atlanta, Georgia, is being awarded a $134,000,000 ceiling cost-plus-fixed-fee, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract. Under this contract, the contractor will perform research; development; engineering; state of-the-art and proof-of-concept sensor systems; and basic and advanced technology research and development. No task orders are being issued at this time. The work will be performed in Atlanta, Georgia. The ordering period is from March 30, 2016 through March 29, 2021. One offer was solicited and one offer was received. Research, development, test and evaluation funds will be used, with no funds being obligated at the time of award.

People may trust robots too much for their own safety, a new study suggests. In a mock building fire, test subjects followed instructions from an “Emergency Guide Robot” even after the machine had proven itself unreliable and after some participants were told the robot had broken down.

The research was designed to determine whether or not building occupants would trust a robot designed to help them evacuate a high-rise in case of fire or other emergency. But the researchers were surprised to find the test subjects followed the robot's instructions even when the machine’s behavior should not have inspired trust.

Using nanometer-scale components, researchers have demonstrated the first optical rectenna, a device that combines the functions of an antenna and a rectifier diode to convert light directly into direct current electricity.

Based on multiwall carbon nanotubes and tiny rectifiers fabricated onto them, optical rectennas could provide a new technology for photodetectors that would operate without the need for cooling and energy harvesters that would convert waste heat to electricity. The technology also could ultimately result in a new way to efficiently capture solar energy.