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Hands-on Lab Exercises for Onsite and Remote Education Delivery in a CPS Communication Systems Course Using ISAAC

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Conference

2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Baltimore , Maryland

Publication Date

June 25, 2023

Start Date

June 25, 2023

End Date

June 28, 2023

Conference Session

Online and Remote Teaching

Tagged Division

Electrical and Computer Engineering Division (ECE)

Page Count

11

DOI

10.18260/1-2--43340

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/43340

Download Count

211

Paper Authors

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Austin Ryan Gress University of Idaho

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Previous Sr Electrical Engineering student at the University of Idaho, Go Vandals! Studied with an emphasis on power system generation and management. Aspirations for Systems Engineering that focuses on power system integrity, quality, and security. Aimed with a desire to keep our electric grids safe and reliable and give students the resources they need to do the same.

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Romulo Bainy

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Yacine Chakhchoukh

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Daniel Conte de Leon

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Herbert L. Hess University of Idaho Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0003-1099-3854

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Herb Hess is Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Idaho. He received the PhD Degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1993. His research and teaching interests are in power electronics, electric machines and drives, electric

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Brian K. Johnson P.E. University of Idaho Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-0747-2794

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Brian K. Johnson received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1992. Currently, he is a Distinguished Professor and Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories Endowed Chair in Power Engineering in the Department of Elec

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Hari Challa

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Abstract

The number of positions in the operational technologies (OT) communications domain of Cyber Physical Systems (CPS) organizations has been increasing worldwide in the last 5 years. There exists a skills gap in the current CPS workforce. That gap has reached a critical level, especially for skills in the communication domain of CPS organizations. The use of hands-on exercises is known to be a practice that helps alleviate skills gap in students and in trainees. Incorporating hands-on exercises in a degree program will mitigate skills gap in graduates. While the graduates can help fill increasingly vacant positions in the communications domain of CPS organizations, it is also important to provide continuing education resources for working professionals. One of our course design priorities is to maximize outreach to the CPS workforce and to minimize potential damage caused by another pandemic-like societal disruption. As such, facilitating equity of access to quality hands-on educational materials across both remote and onsite learners is one of our important objectives. We created lab exercises for enabling hands-on learning in a CPS communication systems course for on-campus and remote learners.

Our hands-on exercises include tutorials in the following topics: 1) unmanaged and managed switch-based communication networks; 2) telemetry, component configuration and actuation workflows for communication using multiple OT protocols operating over Ethernet and over serial connections; 3) cybersecurity of communication devices in a CPS organization e.g., configuring gateways; and 4) commissioning i.e., testing et validation of communication devices in a CPS organization. Our exercises work uniformly and seamlessly for both onsite and remote learners. Creating uniform, seamless materials for both onsite and remote students required exploration of secure, easy-to-use network schemes that meet the requirements of a university network security policies. We discuss the challenges faced in our exploration efforts. We present a case study where the described hands-on exercises are used in a joint listed senior/graduate level course at a public research university in the US. The case study course is cross listed for both Computer Science (CS) and Electrical Engineering (EE) majors. Our case study presents the implementation of hands-on exercises on the ISAAC (The Idaho CPS SCADA Cybersecurity Testbed) power system as a use case. We present results of an informal user experience survey for the students who performed our hands-on exercises.

Jillepalli, A., & Gress, A. R., & Bainy, R., & Chakhchoukh, Y., & Conte de Leon, D., & Hess, H. L., & Johnson, B. K., & Challa, H. (2023, June), Hands-on Lab Exercises for Onsite and Remote Education Delivery in a CPS Communication Systems Course Using ISAAC Paper presented at 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Baltimore , Maryland. 10.18260/1-2--43340

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