Emerging Cyber Security: Bio-inspired Techniques and MITM Detection in IoT

Chapter 9 - Corporate IT Security Project Plan

The article assesses the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) according to the developed TRL checklist. The TRL approach has been applied to analyzing the technology readiness level of a Russian start-up company producing systems of multisensory and multifunction devices for Smart House. The authors approbated the modified TRL methodology, which made it possible to evaluate the readiness of technologies’ integration among themselves and to get a generalized assessment of the readiness of the technologies’ system – Integration Readiness Levels (IRL). It has been proved that the System Readiness Level (SRL) of technology corresponds to the design concept stage. Taking into account indicators and means of quality assurance at the stages of design and initiation of such production is highly relevant.

Evaluation of the maturity level of biomass electricity generation technologies using the technology readiness level criteria

This study explores the determinants of survival and success among Brazilian startups, with emphasis on technological maturity levels and critical success factors across the business lifecycle. It seeks to examine how technological readiness influences performance and to identify managerial shortcomings that may jeopardize long-term sustainability. A mixed-methods design was employed, integrating a systematic literature review with semi-structured interviews conducted with startup CEOs. The Technology Readiness Level (TRL), as adopted by the U.S. Department of Energy, was applied to evaluate the technological maturity and success potential of the participating startups. The findings reveal that a significant number of entrepreneurs lack familiarity with the TRL framework and its managerial implications, constraining strategic technological decision-making. Moreover, the study identifies a lack of structured management and evaluation mechanisms, which heightens exposure to risks typically associated with the critical startup phase known as the “Valley of Death.” The analysis draws on self-reported TRL data from 80 respondents, which may introduce bias and limit the generalizability of the results. Nonetheless, the study provides a foundation for future research employing objective TRL assessments across sectors and regions to further investigate how technological maturity and innovation capability affect startup survival and to inform policies aimed at strengthening innovation ecosystems. Overall, the results emphasize the need to broaden TRL awareness and to adopt structured management practices, particularly during high-risk phases, to enhance decision-making quality and operational resilience.

Bridge to zero-emission: Life cycle assessment of CO2–methanol conversion process and energy optimization

The transition to a sustainable energy mix is essential to mitigate climate change. Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) using low-salinity water (smart water) has emerged as a promising strategy for reducing environmental impacts in the petroleum industry, producing a highly valuable energy source due to both its energy density and market value. This study critically reviews intermediate technological readiness levels (TRL), applying a patent-based approach (TRL 4–5) and a review of articles (TRL 3) to analyze various aspects of smart water for EOR, including its composition. A total of 23 patents from the European Patent Office (Questel Orbit) and 1395 articles from Elsevier’s Scopus database were analyzed, considering annual trends, country distribution, international collaborations, author and applicant affiliations, citation dependencies, and factorial analyses. Both patents and articles show exponential growth; however, international collaboration is more frequent in the scientific literature, while patents remain concentrated in a few countries aligned with their markets. Technologies are focused on wettability, surface complexation, CO2 interactions, emulsification, aerogels, reinjection water treatment, carbonate reservoirs, effluent treatment, nanofluidics, and ASP fluids. Recent topics include CO2 associations, permeability, fractured reservoirs, gels, reservoir water, wettability alteration, and reservoir/oil heterogeneity. The findings indicate the need for multivariated development of customized smart waters to address complex interfacial synergistic mechanisms. International Joint Industry Projects and global regulations on the safe use and composition of hybrid injections are recommended to accelerate development, reduce environmental impacts, and enhance the efficient use of existing fields, alleviating the challenges of finding new reservoirs.

Integrating technology readiness levels (TRL) into the management of engineering projects is critical to the mitigation of risk and improved customer/supplier communications. TRLs provide a common framework and language with which consistent comparisons of different technologies and approaches can be made. At Sandia National Laboratories, where technologies are developed, integrated and deployed into high consequence systems, the use of TRLs may be transformational. They are technology independent and span the full range of technology development including scientific and applied research, identification of customer requirements, modeling and simulation, identification of environments, testing and integration. With this report, we provide a reference set of definitions for TRLs and a brief history of TRLs at Sandia National Laboratories. We then propose and describe two approaches that may be used to integrate TRLs into the NW SMU business practices. In the first approach, we analyze how TRLs can be integrated within concurrent qualification as documented in TBP-100 [1]. In the second approach we take a look at the product realization process (PRP) as documented in TBP-PRP [2]. Both concurrent qualification and product realization are fundamental to the way weapons engineering work is conducted at this laboratory and the NWC (nuclear weapons complex) as a whole. Given the current structure and definitions laid out in the TBP-100 and TBP-PRP, we believe that integrating TRLs into concurrent qualification (TBP-100) rather than TBP-PRP is optimal. Finally, we note that our charter was to explore and develop ways of integrating TRLs into the NW SMU and therefore we do not significantly cover the development and history of TRLs. This work was executed under the auspices and direction of Sandia's Weapon Engineering Program. Please contact Gerry Sleefe, Deputy Program Director, for further information.

Governmental Investment in Low TRL in the United States: Funding Innovative Companies from Concepts to Systems

Base researches in geoscience and mineral resources, such as geological and geo-thematic mapping, geological survey and observation, have long-term, continuity and time-leasing characteristics and they are difficult to present the particular research stages or progressions in the research span. The Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs), developed by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), is effective for presenting research maturity levels and progression in the development of new technologies. This study suggests adjusted definitions for the Technology Readiness Levels to fit Geo-technology (Technology in Geoscience and Mineral Resources). Base geological researches, including mapping, surveys and observation, can be also presented in research levels from TRL 1 (R&D planning, literature survey) to TRL 9 (geological information construction and service in all target areas) in terms of the final product`s coverage. Moreover, not only development and construction of commercial products, geological disasters and environmental researches can also be presented in field demonstrations through public pilot applications. The modified commercialization or cemonstration TRLs in Geo-technology are TRL 5 (starting pilot field application), TRL 6 (pilot field operation) and TRL 7 (pilot field operation for a larger scale, greater than ten percent of the actual environment).

At present, the methodology of technology readiness levels (TRL) is used worldwide by both public organizations and private companies to address a number of issues. In the system of public support for the development of the science, technology and innovation (STI) sector, TRL is increasingly used as a tool for R&D project management and funding. At the same time, the TRL methodology is not integrated into the budget process in any country in the world, which does not allow the full potential of TRL to be actualized. For Russia, where the role of state scientific and research organizations and public funding of STI is extremely important, this task is a real challenge. As the authors conclude, not only should the TRL methodology be adapted to the tasks of managing budget expenditures for R&D, but the public funding system with its financial instruments should also be adjusted taking into account the requirements of TRL. The key direction of integrating the TRL methodology into the budgetary process is linking of TRLs with elements of types of budgetary expenditures. This task could be accomplished after having taken the following measures: improvement of the budget classification in terms of R&D expenditures; application of a unified project approach to all instruments of state financial support and a unified classification of R&D projects; provision of a unified system for recording expenditures on science; improvement of public support instruments; and determination of the required ratio of R&D funding from budgetary and extrabudgetary sources for various TRL intervals. This work should include development and implementation of a new approach to understanding the boundaries of the STI sector, stages (types) of scientific activities, planning methods and conditions for the provision of public support, as well as improvements in the conceptual apparatus and tools of the support.

Cyber security has become an important issue both on the EU and the national level. Cyber security is now perceived as a part of national security. The newly emerging cyber security policy, comprising national cyber security strategies as an important constituent part, has been recently paid considerable attention. Speaking of national cyber security strategies, a positive thing is that the majority of EU member states have already approved such strategies. However, the approved strategies differ considerably in terms of their content and implementation. The present article aims at identifying reasons for differences in individual national strategies and analyses aspects of their unifications in expectation to find out an optimum balance between the degree of unification and the need to retain differences arising from intrinsic national singularities. To this end, the article analyses the issue of national cyber security on the basis of Lithuania's cyber security strategy as a sample in the context of ENISA good practices for the development of cyber security strategies and by application of ENISA developed KPIs and testing ENISA cyber security strategy evaluation tool. Finally, the article suggests recommendations on further development of national cyber security strategies in terms of their unification and national singularities.

Objectives: To improve the modern approach to assessment of technology readiness level in the case of development of technology for high-tech industries, the products of which significantly affect environmental ecology. A vivid example of this kind of industries is the aviation industry. Methods: Such methods of research as systematic and logical approach, economic analysis and model development are applied. Findings: The main research finding is the development of a new additional readiness level “Ecology”, for which questions and required evidence necessary for passing it in the framework of the modified technology readiness level chain were formulated. An innovative parallel civilian aircraft constructional design concept was developed with consideration of the formulated additional ecological technology readiness level. Applications/Improvement: The possibility of practical implementation of the proposed approach is shown by filling the aviation technology validation checklist which includes requirements for aviation environmental protection. The necessity of final validation of aviation technology aimed at reducing the negative impact of aircraft on the environment is illustrated and justified. Keywords: Aviation Technology Validation, Civil Aviation, Eco Design, Ecology, Technology Readiness Levels

This Final Technical Report describes the work and accomplishments of the project entitled, “Green-House-Gas-Reduced Coal-and-Biomass-to-Liquid-Based Jet Fuel (GHGR-CBTL) Process”. The main objective of the project was to raise the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of the GHGR-CBTL fuel-production technology from TRL 4 to TRL 5 by producing a drop-in synthetic Jet Propellant 8 (JP-8) with a greenhouse-gas footprint less than or equal to petroleum-based JP-8 by utilizing mixtures of coal and biomass as the feedstock. The system utilizes the patented Altex fuel-production technology, which incorporates advanced catalysts developed by Pennsylvania State University. While the system was not fabricated and tested, major efforts were expended to design the 1-TPD and a full-scale plant. The system was designed, a Block-Flow Diagram (BFD), a Process-Flow Diagram (PFD), and Piping-and-Instrumentation Diagrams (P&IDs) were produced, a Bill of Materials (BOM) and associated spec sheets were produced, commercially available components were selected and procured, custom components were designed and fabricated, catalysts were developed and screened for performance, and permitting activities were conducted. Optimization tests for JP-8 production using C2 olefin as the feed were performed over a range of temperatures, pressures and WHSVs. Liquid yields of between 63 to 65% with 65% JP-8 fraction (41-42% JP-8 yield) at 50 psig were achieved. Life-Cycle Analysis (LCA) was performed by Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), and a GHGR-CBTL module was added to the Greenhouse gases, Regulated Emissions, and Energy use in Transportation (GREET®) model. Based upon the experimental results, the plant design was reconfigured for zero natural-gas imports and minimal electricity imports. The LCA analysis of the reconfigured process utilizing the GREET model showed that if the char from the process was utilized to produce combined heat and power (CHP) then a feed containing 23 wt% biomass and 77 wt% lignite would be needed for parity with petroleum-based JP-8. If the char is not utilized for CHP, but sequestered in a land fill, 24 wt% biomass and 76 wt% lignite would be required. A TEA was performed on this configuration following DOE guidelines and using the ANL-developed GREET module that showed that the GHGR-CBTL TOC and ECO are 69% and 58% of those for the DOE FT-Liquids Baseline Case, respectively. This analysis shows that the economics of the GHGR-CBTL process are significantly better than a gasification/FT process. No technical barriers were identified. The lower costs and the detailed design that was performed under this project are being used by Altex to attract funding partners to move the GHGR-CBTL development forward.

GridStat is a developing communication technology to provide real-time data delivery services to the electric power grid. It is being developed in a collaborative effort between the Electrical Power Engineering and Distributed Computing Science Departments at Washington State University. Improving the cyber security of GridStat was the principle focus of this project. A regional network was established to test GridStat’s cyber security mechanisms in a realistic environment. The network consists of nodes at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Idaho National Laboratory, and Washington State University. Idaho National Laboratory (INL) was tasked with performing the security assessment, the results of which detailed a number or easily resolvable and previously unknown issues, as well as a number of difficult and previously known issues. Going forward we recommend additional development prior to commercialization of GridStat. The development plan is structured into three domains: Core Development, Cyber Security and Pilot Projects. Each domain contains a number of phased subtasks that build upon each other to increase the robustness and maturity of GridStat.

This case study used a technology readiness level (TRL), market attractiveness level (MAL), and customer readiness level (CRL) to measure the prospect of promising products. The TRL, MAL, and CRL were measured using Delphi methods. A TRL is composed of basic research as well as experimental, prototype, practical, and commercial stages. A market attractiveness level is made up of global market size, global market growth rate, and government policy suitability. A customer readiness level was measured using consumer preference. The promising products were mainly selected as information communication and software related products. Among the technologies and products announced by domestic and foreign organizations, products suitable for research and development tasks of small and medium-sized enterprises were selected. The results of this case study are expected to be committed for the enhancement of the success rate of commercialization for small and medium-sized enterprises by being dedicated to the R&D planning of small and medium-sized enterprises in the ICT (Information and Communication Technology)/SW (Software)) field and proposing a direction to pursue the business. The purpose of this paper is to propose an approach to measure the prospect of promising products by using three levels: TRL, MAL, and CRL, which are measured using Delphi methods. This approach aims to enhance the success rate of commercialization for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).