On October 28, 2024, NIST Leader Dr. David Wollman, Deputy Division Chief of NIST’s Smart Connected Systems Division, participated in an invited panel session at the Imagine Nation Executive Leadership Conference (ELC) 2024 in Hershey, Pennsylvania. The annual conference is organized by the American Council for Technology-Industrial Advisory Committee (ACT-IAC) and brings together leaders and executives in the government technology community and industry to discuss issues facing government and to present innovative strategies and practical solutions. The panel session focused on connected technologies for smart infrastructure, and it covered a broad range of topics from automated vehicles and smart factories to security and resilience for critical infrastructures. In addition to Dr. Wollman, panelists included Steven McAndrews (Deputy Chief Information Officer, National Nuclear Security Administration, at the Department of Energy), Brannan Villee (Division Director, Infrastructure Resilience and Security Solutions Division, and Strategic Program Manager, Critical Infrastructure and Resilience Research, at the Science and Technology Directorate, Department of Homeland Security), and moderator Shamik Basu (Vice President of Strategic Connectivity and IoT, Verizon), and the session was organized by Carmen Zapata, Carolyn Jussaume, and other ACT-IAC volunteers.
After opening remarks by moderator Shamik Basu to frame the discussion in terms of smart cities, sustainability, and the interplay between transportation, buildings, energy, and infrastructure, each panelist gave introductory remarks including describing their agency’s role and contributions. Dr. Wollman provided his thoughts and insights on how standards and interoperability support the innovation ecosystem, the importance of explicitly considering the role of humans interacting with smart connected systems, and the need for metrics including NIST’s key performance indicators framework for smart cities and communities. In addition, based on his observation that one cannot rely on long-term continuous government support, Wollman gave advice to always develop a “Plan B” home for important activities in the private sector, such as a non-profit or other industry organization, which can continue to support and shepherd initiatives if government support and/or funding is interrupted.
As the session progressed based on moderator questions, Wollman described NIST’s automated vehicle research program and its components, and the importance of collaboration between manufacturers, municipalities, states, and the federal government on topics of data frameworks, standards, interoperability, AV communications, Artificial Intelligence-based cooperative perception, and regulation. With respect to smart factories, Wollman described NIST leadership of an industrial wireless systems performance assessment standard IEEE P3388 to support greater industry use of wireless communications in these complex electromagnetic environments. During the audience question and answer portion of the session, Wollman also discussed trustworthiness of cyber-physical systems and the Internet of Things and the need to consider the potential of unmanaged composition or unmaintained/abandoned-in-place technologies for which there may not exist a responsible entity to monitor security and other risks and to maintain and apply updated controls.
On 24-25 September 2024, NIST hosted the annual meeting for the Technical Language Processing Community of Interest (TLP COI). This year’s meeting centered on the current landscape of language processing needs and emerging applications, with a focus on risk awareness, accessibility, and longevity.
TLP, a method by which tools for natural language processing are tailored to engineering use cases, is critical for the implementation of efficient and accurate Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools by not just enterprise and industry leaders, but any stakeholder in a field with domain-specific or context heavy language. NIST joined with industry practitioners and academics to create the TLP COI with the goal of sharing best practices related to human-generated language in technical domains at every stage of the process: development, deployment, adaptation, and evaluation.
The event featured standalone presentations on many topics, including: the use of generative AI in engineering design; applying language processing to improve climate and resilience research; structuring scientific and technology language using machine-assisted techniques; and using TLP to extract relationships between standards.
In addition, a set of lightning talks by government and industry speakers described how they were applying TLP in their domain, such as maintenance and engineering design. On the following day, panelists from the fields of cybersecurity, AI, and the wireless spectrum spoke to the impacts and risks related to TLP.
Missed the event? No worries! A recording is available on the event page.
Looking to attend a future conference? The TLP COI has started to plan next year’s event, and please be on the lookout for future communications. Until then, you can engage with the community through GitHub discussions (where you can also find a collection of TLP resources), or on the TLP COI Slack instance, which you can join by emailing tlp-coi@nist.gov.
In September 2024, NIST Engineers Rosemary Astheimer and Allison Barnard Feeney participated in meetings held by the MBx Interoperability Forum - a collaborative testing initiative between AFNeT Services; PDES, Inc.; and prostep ivip since 1999. The forum serves as an industry platform to express requirements and work with CAD and translation vendors to develop implementation strategies that align with ISO 10303 STEP (Standard for the Exchange of Product model data).
STEP is a neutral file format containing essential product information for manufacturing and quality measurement to ensure it is fit for purpose in a machine-readable form. This supports automated devices, such as Computer Numerical Controlled (CNC) machines for manufacturing and Coordinate Measuring Machines (CMM) for automated inspection, significantly reducing human error, enhancing efficiency, and lowering operational costs. The committee’s recent focus is to provide traceability of product requirements over the lifecycle of a product. As information moves through the supply chain, different systems adapt the data to be fit for purpose. NIST research shows that associating universally unique identifiers (UUIDs) with key engineering requirements enables traceability, leading to NIST’s recommendations to incorporate UUIDs in product data standards and commercial engineering software.
Stakeholder input indicates that the lack of a mechanism to trace a design’s history, such as UUIDs, has resulted in a major roadblock to realizing the full potential of a model-based enterprise.
One example of UUID usage is an OEM requesting a change to an initial design that was provided to a supplier. The OEM submits a change order to the supplier, identifying the detailed information that was changed and its related UUID. The Supplier makes the change and returns the data, with updated information associated with the same UUID, to the OEM for an unambiguous communication of the change.
A new NIST CAD test model developed by Astheimer prompted extensive discussions on the relationship to design features and UUIDs. For example, how are UUIDs applied to a pattern of holes? The team discussed the implications of assigning a UUID to each individual feature in the pattern or if a UUID should be applied to the parent feature and another UUID applied to the pattern parameters. The team will continue to work through proposing solutions and testing them in the upcoming test round. Once vetted by the members of the MBx-IF, the results will be brought to the STEP committee to consider adding to a future edition.
NIST supports many other activities within the group, such as authoring recommended practices to supporting vendor implementation and authoring Computer-Aided Design (CAD) models made publicly available for testing. While STEP has been widely implemented, new requirements are continuously identified as industry continues to expand its use of the standard in earnest.
In October 2024, NIST Researcher Rosemary Astheimer presented at the 2024 Women in Manufacturing Summit in Boston, Massachusetts. The Summit, attended by over 2,100 women, serves as a platform for advancing the roles and impact of women in the intersecting fields of manufacturing and technology. This year’s conference focused on digital transformation, exploring its promises and challenges for manufacturing leaders.
Astheimer’s presentation tackled one of the pressing issues of the manufacturing sector: leveraging a digital product definition to enhance data utilization without burdening the workforce with complex system interdependencies. While many manufacturers collect massive amounts of data, Astheimer noted that human contextualization is still heavily relied upon for data interpretation and insight. She explained how standards, such as ISO 10303, provide a structured format for capturing data which reduces human error and simplifies data flow across various systems, ultimately freeing workers to engage in higher-value, more meaningful tasks.
ISO 10303, also known as the “Standard for the Exchange of Product model data” or STEP, has been evolving for more than 25 years to support automation in manufacturing and it has been widely adopted. The standard “language” that STEP defines enables seamless communication, eliminating the need for manual data re-entry, minimizing errors, and boosting efficiency. “While it may seem daunting to adopt such standards,” Astheimer shared, “the benefits of ISO 10303 are substantial, and companies don’t need to solve every problem all at once to see a positive impact. Even incremental implementation can drive significant productivity gains.”
Astheimer also addressed the vital aspect of workforce acceptance of digital transformation. Many employees view automation as a potential threat to job security. She underscored that digital transformation does not equate to fewer jobs; it enhances employees' roles to meet the demands of a rapidly advancing industry. With systems and standards streamlining operational processes, workers can engage in more complex problem-solving and decision-making roles, advancing their careers and directly contributing to organizational goals.
Astheimer’s presentation left attendees with practical insights and approaches to begin implementing digital transformation. Starting with manageable goals, even small projects, will help demonstrate value without overwhelming available resources. Investing in training and upskilling employees to use digital tools can empower the workforce and ease concerns over job displacement. The benefits of reduced bottlenecks and improved responsiveness can be measured to demonstrate the value of using a digital approach.
The Women in Manufacturing Summit underscores the critical role of leaders in shaping the future of manufacturing. Astheimer’s work on data standards highlights how structured, systematic approaches to technology drive progress, and workforce empowerment speaks directly to the Summit's mission of supporting women’s leadership and innovation in manufacturing.
At the 50th Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society (IECON 2024) in Chicago, Illinois, Dr. Richard (Rick) Candell, Principal Investigator of Industrial Wireless Systems at NIST, presented a "NIST Perspective on Industrial Wireless for Operational Systems," detailing the challenges and advancements in wireless connectivity within industrial spaces. He addressed issues such as severe path loss, blockage, and multipath due to dense metallic environments, as well as non-network noise sources like welding and machinery. Dr. Candell highlighted the stringent data delivery requirements for operational applications in manufacturing, construction, and energy production, emphasizing the need for time-aware protocols and reliability enhancements through informational redundancy approaches as well as the need for spectrally aware control systems. He also discussed the IEEE P3388 working group's efforts in standardizing industrial wireless performance testing and outlined a forward path for the widespread adoption of wireless systems to enhance U.S. manufacturing competitiveness. This presentation underscored the importance of careful testing to ensure data delivery performance in operational systems and showcased NIST's research and standardization supporting the industrial wireless sector, including wireless time-sensitive networks and testbed activities. The announcement and abstract for Dr. Candell’s invited talk is found at https://www.iecon-2024.org/ies-industry-forum.
At the 50th Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society (IECON 2024), Dr. Richard (Rick) Candell presented a collaborative effort between NIST and Intel, showcasing key advancements in industrial communications. The presentation highlighted how the application of IEEE 802.1CB (frame replication and elimination for reliability) in a wireless IEC 62439 High-availability Seamless Redundancy (HSR) architecture significantly enhanced on-time deadline compliance in industrial automation systems. In this work, Montgomery et al. emphasized that this approach may greatly improve the reliability of industrial communications through seamless redundancy. The wireless team demonstrated the performance of IEEE 802.1CB when operating across 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz frequency bands by injecting the wireless channel with stressful interference loads. They found that the wireless IEEE 802.1CB implementation performed well as expected, in that it greatly reduced latency when a single frequency band was subject to interference loads. However, when both bands were stressed, latency increased. Carrier-sense multiple access was the driving mechanism in Wi-Fi that caused the latency spikes, as devices sensed for the channel to be clear before transmitting. By implementing other time-sensitive networking standards, such as 802.11Qbv (scheduled traffic), integrators may eliminate randomness by protecting critical traffic. Stakeholders from both industry and academia believe that utilizing these redundant frequency bands will enable emerging industrial applications, where maintaining reliable wireless links is paramount.
NIST Industrial Wireless Systems Research Lead Dr. Richard (Rick) Candell participated in the kick-off meeting for the ASTM F45.04 System Communication and Interoperability for Robotics, Automation, and Autonomous Systems committee’s task group on Mitigation of Interference in Wireless Communication Systems. As a technical expert in wireless communications, Candell’s role involves bridging the F45.04 technical activities with the IEEE 3388 standardization effort on industrial wireless performance testing, which he chairs. Wireless connectivity in industrial spaces presents numerous challenges, such as severe path loss, blockage, and interference from dense metallic environments and machinery. Addressing these challenges is crucial for ensuring highly reliable communications, interoperability, and enhanced performance in robotics, automation, and autonomous systems. Candell and his research team are working to ensure that these standards are effectively integrated to support the future of these advanced technologies. The ASTM F45.04 and the IEEE 3388 working groups include participants from large and small corporations, government, and academia.
