Idaho National Lab Adding Emerging Technologies to Wireless Testbed

Idaho National Laboratory (INL), which focuses on nuclear energy solutions, is planning improvements, such as artificial intelligence, machine learning and satellite communications capabilities, for its 20-year-old wireless testbed to evaluate and test next-generation wireless technologies, sometimes referred to as NextG.

The testbed links remote cell towers across the U.S. Department of Energy’s expansive 890-square-mile desert site. Like all other national labs, INL is required by legislation to support other departments and agencies to help solve the nation’s challenges. Wireless testbed personnel work closely with the Defense Department, the Justice Department, international partners and commercial carriers, such as AT&T and Verizon.

The INL wireless testbed has played a role in protecting U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, where enemy fighters used cellphones to detonate improvised explosive devices. INL researchers used the testbed to help develop and test mitigations to defeat those devices, according to a draft INL article sent to SIGNAL Media.

Additionally, testbed researchers helped agencies develop solutions to quickly restore communications after disasters like Hurricane Katrina, which knocked out base transmitting stations for 100 miles along the coastline. And it has supported major events such as the Super Bowl, ensuring the local cell network can handle increased traffic and safeguarding first responder communication channels from potential jamming.

However, the nuclear energy sector itself faces some wireless technology challenges that the testbed could help solve. For example, wireless technologies could be used for command and control of nuclear energy systems, but that potential raises safety and security questions that need to be researched.

“One project that we’re working on right now is that nuclear energy is very, very cautious on the safety basis. Wireless command and control systems, I don’t believe that have been used at all, because the safety basis is not fully understood. So, a range like ours has taken a project to look at the safety behind a 5G-based communications system for control of the nuclear energy system,” said Carl Kutsche, INL’s director, strategic technology integration.

For research purposes, INL can emulate multiple nuclear reactors. “There are proposals where we would take a look at the implications of 5G control for future nuclear reactors. That’s [for] small or modular reactor programs, deployable, reactive systems,” Kutsche added.

INL personnel already have added capabilities to the wireless testbed over the years, expanding to 3G, 4G and the latest 5G technologies while also preserving older systems for legacy equipment testing.

Looking ahead, the wireless testbed has started preparing for the next wave of cellular technology with the introduction of the first open-air, 5G wireless test range dedicated to security testing and technology development.

The lab’s forward-thinking approach extends to NextG and the latest developments in radio access network (RAN) systems, which record data about cellular users that is then used to optimize networks. These advancements promise enhanced efficiency but also introduce potential risks, such as the misuse of artificial intelligence in RAN intelligent controllers, according to INL’s draft article.

At a recent conference, Kutsche warned attendees about the potential pitfalls of RAN intelligent controllers. “They just built the world’s largest signal intelligence collector,” he said in the draft article. “We’re trying to help everyone be much more efficient but also much safer and more secure at the same time.”

SIGNAL Media conducted a virtual interview with Kutsche and his colleagues, Scott Peterson, INL’s wireless testbed manager, and Tom Holschuh, communications technology manager, about the preparations for the future, which include artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) capabilities.  

“We are definitely increasing our laboratory-wide, AI/ML, expertise and capability. We are increasing our lab-wide cloud security and applications usage and testing capability. And then we are also working with satellite communications, adding satellite where necessary, where called for,” Peterson reported. “And we’re also working on what’s called open RAN. We have increased the numbers of vendors selling the radio access equipment, and we are increasing our laboratory capability to do testing and evaluation of multiple lab RAN offerings.”

Peterson indicated the upgrades are in the early planning stages and that INL officials still have many questions, such as whether to develop a smart warehouse environment and whether the lab has the required resources, physical infrastructure or staff expertise. “We’re looking at those, preparing more from a planning aspect, as opposed to actual physical preparations on range right now. That’s kind of what we’re looking at for NextG.”

Regarding RAN sharing, Kutsche said one of the challenges is a lack of definition. “One of the big things in 5G is that, believe it or not, the roaming and the RAN sharing is not entirely defined [regarding] how we’re going to do it. Most of the 4G systems are covering how we do that, but we’ve taken on projects looking at the different methods of doing both roaming and RAN sharing and what the throughput, sharing and security challenges are in doing that.”

International coalition partners are tackling some of the same challenges and collaborating with the U.S. Defense Department, Kutsche shared. Wireless testbed researchers are exploring ways for U.S. government officials, including the military, to communicate safely and increase interoperability with allies and partners over 5G networks. INL has a similar arrangement with Latvia and is in talks with researchers in Spain.

In essence, 5G offers more secure RAN sharing, which is a way for multiple mobile network operators to share telecommunications infrastructure. RAN sharing would allow NATO troops to securely access their home 5G network through another NATO country.

“What our lab has done is establish interconnections with another major range in Europe, the NATO [Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence] in Estonia, and we’ve also worked with other coalition partners in some other countries, conducting experiments demonstrating how equipment and communications could be enhanced to be more effective in the future,” Kutsche offered.

Cooperation with countries in the Indo-Pacific region is also a possibility. “We’ve got some work potentially with some Asian countries because we are supporting the U.S. thrust in working better with our coalition partners in the Indo-Pacific Command theater,” Kutsche said.

He stressed the value of 5G capabilities in coalition communications. “Instead of having very narrow, almost old-style teletype linkages, Link 16-type things that we use for coalition communications, 5G offers the ability to vastly increase and improve our coalition communications to handle global challenges. We’re not there yet,” he offered. He added that questions remain, such as how 5G would be used for coalition communications and what the security challenges might be, so additional experiments and demonstrations are needed.

Peterson added that connecting to, and cooperating with, other facilities is not a new phenomenon for the INL Wireless Test Bed. “The INL testbed perspective is that we have a history of being able to connect with other entities, other ranges, other facilities. We can set up the communication infrastructure, connect to them and get those links established to conduct testing. We’ve extended our cell networks out to other facilities to be able to share resources within the community.”

The testbed can evaluate system integration, interoperability and the ability to operate in contested or congested environments. “We recreate very mission-specific environments or field accurate environments that are a challenge for a lot of people to create. We don’t direct the solutions, and we don’t build the actual solution, but we provide the test frame for them,” Kutsche offered.

Holschuh added that those testbed environments can test nontechnological capabilities as well. “Those environments give the users opportunities to practice their tactics, techniques and procedures because sometimes the answer may be physical—a physical location, terrain masking kind of things—as much as it could be a technological solution. For the users to have an open area where they can test how to use the kit, the way they’re going to use it when deployed, becomes one of the big factors.”

INL also can test systems to the point of destruction, Kutsche reported. “With our 890 square miles and the frequency management that we’re able to conduct here, we can do testing that most other agencies can’t, shouldn’t or won’t do. We can test things literally to destruction.”

In response to a follow-up question on that point, Kutsche added that the testbed has been used to conduct electromagnetic pulse experimentation against “a commercially valid installation of a cellular site.” The purpose was to see how much power it would take to actually affect the equipment inside.

“You can lock up the equipment or cause it to be affected and it ceases to operate the way it’s supposed to. We can do that type of testing in some of our other ranges. For instance, we have adjacent ranges for power, water, rail lines, highways, security systems, and they all use communications. So, we’ve been involved with testing, say, where a power line was mismanaged and it was taken to destruction, which is quite spectacular if you’ve ever seen a power line actually exploding,” he elaborated. “The range is set up to accomplish that type of testing.”

He cited INL’s 2007 cyber attack against an Aurora generator designed to demonstrate the destructive power of a cyber attack. “We did a cyber attack on a generator and the transfer case of the generator actually was damaged to the point where it couldn’t be used anymore. So, like I said, we are set up to do things that other people can’t, shouldn’t or won’t do. That’s the purpose of this range.”