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Full-Text Articles in Engineering

Evaluation Criteria For Selecting Nosql Databases In A Single Box Environment, Ryan D. Engle, Brent T. Langhals, Michael R. Grimaila, Douglas D. Hodson Aug 2018

Evaluation Criteria For Selecting Nosql Databases In A Single Box Environment, Ryan D. Engle, Brent T. Langhals, Michael R. Grimaila, Douglas D. Hodson

Faculty Publications

In recent years, NoSQL database systems have become increasingly popular, especially for big data, commercial applications. These systems were designed to overcome the scaling and flexibility limitations plaguing traditional relational database management systems (RDBMSs). Given NoSQL database systems have been typically implemented in large-scale distributed environments serving large numbers of simultaneous users across potentially thousands of geographically separated devices, little consideration has been given to evaluating their value within single-box environments. It is postulated some of the inherent traits of each NoSQL database type may be useful, perhaps even preferable, regardless of scale. Thus, this paper proposes criteria conceived to …


Estimating Defensive Cyber Operator Decision Confidence, Markus M. Borneman Mar 2018

Estimating Defensive Cyber Operator Decision Confidence, Markus M. Borneman

Theses and Dissertations

As technology continues to advance the domain of cyber defense, signature and heuristic detection mechanisms continue to require human operators to make judgements about the correctness of machine decisions. Human cyber defense operators rely on their experience, expertise, and understanding of network security, when conducting cyber-based investigations, in order to detect and respond to cyber alerts. Ever growing quantities of cyber alerts and network traffic, coupled with systemic manpower issues, mean no one has the time to review or change decisions made by operators. Since these cyber alert decisions ultimately do not get reviewed again, an inaccurate decision could cause …


Behavior Flexibility For Autonomous Unmanned Aerial Systems, Taylor B. Bodin Mar 2018

Behavior Flexibility For Autonomous Unmanned Aerial Systems, Taylor B. Bodin

Theses and Dissertations

Autonomous unmanned aerial systems (UAS) could supplement and eventually subsume a substantial portion of the mission set currently executed by remote pilots, making UAS more robust, responsive, and numerous than permitted by teleoperation alone. Unfortunately, the development of robust autonomous systems is difficult, costly, and time-consuming. Furthermore, the resulting systems often make little reuse of proven software components and offer limited adaptability for new tasks. This work presents a development platform for UAS which promotes behavioral flexibility. The platform incorporates the Unified Behavior Framework (a modular, extensible autonomy framework), the Robotic Operating System (a RSF), and PX4 (an open- source …


Progressive Network Deployment, Performance, And Control With Software-Defined Networking, Daniel J. Casey Mar 2018

Progressive Network Deployment, Performance, And Control With Software-Defined Networking, Daniel J. Casey

Theses and Dissertations

The inflexible nature of traditional computer networks has led to tightly-integrated systems that are inherently difficult to manage and secure. New designs move low-level network control into software creating software-defined networks (SDN). Augmenting an existing network with these enhancements can be expensive and complex. This research investigates solutions to these problems. It is hypothesized that an add-on device, or "shim" could be used to make a traditional switch behave as an OpenFlow SDN switch while maintaining reasonable performance. A design prototype is found to cause approximately 1.5% reduction in throughput for one ow and less than double increase in latency, …


Passive Radiolocation Of Ieee 802.11 Emitters Using Directional Antennae, Bradford E. Law Mar 2018

Passive Radiolocation Of Ieee 802.11 Emitters Using Directional Antennae, Bradford E. Law

Theses and Dissertations

Low-cost commodity hardware and cheaper, more capable consumer-grade drones make the threat of home-made, inexpensive drone-mounted wireless attack platforms (DWAPs) greater than ever. Fences and physical security do little to impede a drone from approaching private, commercial, or government wireless access points (WAPs) and conducting wireless attacks. At the same time, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) present a valuable tool for network defenders conducting site surveys and emulating threats. These platforms present near-term dangers and opportunities for corporations and governments. Despite the vast leaps in technology these capabilities represent, UAVs are noisy and consequently difficult to conceal as they approach a …


Special Perturbations On The Jetson Tx1 And Tx2 Computers, Tyler M. Moore Mar 2018

Special Perturbations On The Jetson Tx1 And Tx2 Computers, Tyler M. Moore

Theses and Dissertations

Simplified General Perturbations Number 4 (SGP4) has been the traditional algorithm for performing Orbit Determination (OD) onboard orbiting spacecraft. However, the recent rise of high-performance computers with low Size, Weight, and Power (SWAP) factors has provided the opportunity to use Special Perturbations (SP), a more accurate algorithm to perform onboard OD. This research evaluates the most efficient way to implement SP on NVIDIA’s Jetson TX series of integrated Graphical Processing Units (GPUs). An initial serial version was implemented on the Jetson TX1 and TX2's Central Processing Units (CPUs). The runtimes of the initial version are the benchmark that the runtimes …


Mitigating The Effects Of Boom Occlusion On Automated Aerial Refueling Through Shadow Volumes, Zachary C. Paulson Mar 2018

Mitigating The Effects Of Boom Occlusion On Automated Aerial Refueling Through Shadow Volumes, Zachary C. Paulson

Theses and Dissertations

In flight refueling of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) is critical to the United States Air Force (USAF). However, the large communication latency between a ground-based operator and his/her remote UAV makes docking with a refueling tanker unsafe. This latency may be mitigated by leveraging a tanker-centric stereo vision system. The vision system observes and computes an approaching receiver's relative position and orientation offering a low-latency, high frequency docking solution. Unfortunately, the boom -- an articulated refueling arm responsible for physically pumping fuel into the receiver -- occludes large portions of the receiver especially as the receiver approaches and docks with …


Rss-Based Device-Free Passive Detection And Localization Using Home Automation Network Radio Frequencies, Tiffany M. Phan Mar 2018

Rss-Based Device-Free Passive Detection And Localization Using Home Automation Network Radio Frequencies, Tiffany M. Phan

Theses and Dissertations

This research provided a proof of concept for a device-free passive (DfP) system capable of detecting and localizing a target through exploitation of a home automation network’s radio frequency (RF) signals. The system was developed using Insteon devices with a 915 MHz center frequency. Without developer privileges, limitations of the Insteon technology like no intrinsic received signal strength (RSS) field and silent periods between messages were overcome by using software-defined radios to simulate Insteon devices capable of collecting and reporting RSS, and by creating a message generation script and implementing a calibrated filter threshold to reduce silent periods. Evaluation of …


Stereo Vision: A Comparison Of Synthetic Imagery Vs. Real World Imagery For The Automated Aerial Refueling Problem, Nicholas J. Seydel Mar 2018

Stereo Vision: A Comparison Of Synthetic Imagery Vs. Real World Imagery For The Automated Aerial Refueling Problem, Nicholas J. Seydel

Theses and Dissertations

Missions using unmanned aerial vehicles have increased in the past decade. Currently, there is no way to refuel these aircraft. Accomplishing automated aerial refueling can be made possible using the stereo vision system on a tanker. Real world experiments for the automated aerial refueling problem are expensive and time consuming. Currently, simulations performed in a virtual world have shown promising results using computer vision. It is possible to use the virtual world as a substitute environment for the real world. This research compares the performance of stereo vision algorithms on synthetic and real world imagery.


Assured Android Execution Environments, Brandon P. Froberg Mar 2018

Assured Android Execution Environments, Brandon P. Froberg

Theses and Dissertations

Current cybersecurity best practices, techniques, tactics and procedures are insufficient to ensure the protection of Android systems. Software tools leveraging formal methods use mathematical means to assure both a design and implementation for a system and these methods can be used to provide security assurances. The goal of this research is to determine methods of assuring isolation when executing Android software in a contained environment. Specifically, this research demonstrates security properties relevant to Android software containers can be formally captured and validated, and that an implementation can be formally verified to satisfy a corresponding specification. A three-stage methodology called "The …


Integrity Monitoring For Automated Aerial Refueling: A Stereo Vision Approach, Thomas R. Stuart Mar 2018

Integrity Monitoring For Automated Aerial Refueling: A Stereo Vision Approach, Thomas R. Stuart

Theses and Dissertations

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) increasingly require the capability to y autonomously in close formation including to facilitate automated aerial refueling (AAR). The availability of relative navigation measurements and navigation integrity are essential to autonomous relative navigation. Due to the potential non-availability of the global positioning system (GPS) during military operations, it is highly desirable that relative navigation can be accomplished without the use of GPS. This paper develops two algorithms designed to provide relative navigation measurements solely from a stereo image pair. These algorithms were developed and analyzed in the context of AAR using a stereo camera system modeling that …


Quality Of Service Impacts Of A Moving Target Defense With Software-Defined Networking, Samuel A. Mayer Mar 2018

Quality Of Service Impacts Of A Moving Target Defense With Software-Defined Networking, Samuel A. Mayer

Theses and Dissertations

An analysis of the impact a defensive network technique implemented with software-defined networking has upon quality of service experienced by legitimate users. The research validates previous work conducted at AFIT to verify claims of defensive efficacy and then tests network protocols in common use (FTP, HTTP, IMAP, POP, RTP, SMTP, and SSH) on a network that uses this technique. Metrics that indicate the performance of the protocols under test are reported with respect to data gathered in a control network. The conclusions of these experiments enable network engineers to determine if this defensive technique is appropriate for the quality of …


Variable Speed Simulation For Accelerated Industrial Control System Cyber Training, Luke M. Bradford Mar 2018

Variable Speed Simulation For Accelerated Industrial Control System Cyber Training, Luke M. Bradford

Theses and Dissertations

It is important for industrial control system operators to receive quality training to defend against cyber attacks. Hands-on training exercises with real-world control systems allow operators to learn various defensive techniques and see the real-world impact of changes made to a control system. Cyber attacks and operator actions can have unforeseen effects that take a significant amount of time to manifest and potentially cause physical harm to the system, making high-fidelity training exercises time-consuming and costly. This thesis presents a method for accelerating training exercises by simulating and predicting the effects of a cyber event on a partially-simulated control system. …


An Analysis Of Multi-Domain Command And Control And The Development Of Software Solutions Through Devops Toolsets And Practices, Mason R. Bruza Mar 2018

An Analysis Of Multi-Domain Command And Control And The Development Of Software Solutions Through Devops Toolsets And Practices, Mason R. Bruza

Theses and Dissertations

Multi-Domain Command and Control (MDC2) is the exercise of command and control over forces in multiple operational domains (namely air, land, sea, space, and cyberspace) in order to produce synergistic effects in the battlespace, and enhancing this capability has become a major focus area for the United States Air Force (USAF). In order to meet demands for MDC2 software, solutions need to be acquired and/or developed in a timely manner, information technology infrastructure needs to be adaptable to new software requirements, and user feedback needs to drive iterative updates to fielded software. In commercial organizations, agile software development methodologies and …


Assessment Of Structure From Motion For Reconnaissance Augmentation And Bandwidth Usage Reduction, Jonathan B. Roeber Mar 2018

Assessment Of Structure From Motion For Reconnaissance Augmentation And Bandwidth Usage Reduction, Jonathan B. Roeber

Theses and Dissertations

Modern militaries rely upon remote image sensors for real-time intelligence. A typical remote system consists of an unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV, with an attached camera. A video stream is sent from the UAV, through a bandwidth-constrained satellite connection, to an intelligence processing unit. In this research, an upgrade to this method of collection is proposed. A set of synthetic images of a scene captured by a UAV in a virtual environment is sent to a pipeline of computer vision algorithms, collectively known as Structure from Motion. The output of Structure from Motion, a three-dimensional model, is then assessed in …


Securing Data In Transit Using Two Channel Communication, Clark L. Wolfe Mar 2018

Securing Data In Transit Using Two Channel Communication, Clark L. Wolfe

Theses and Dissertations

Securing data in transit is critically important to the Department of Defense in todays contested environments. While encryption is often the preferred method to provide security, there exist applications for which encryption is too resource intensive, not cost-effective or simply not available. In this thesis, a two-channel communication system is proposed in which the message being sent can be intelligently and dynamically split over two or more channels to provide a measure of data security either when encryption is not available, or perhaps in addition to encryption. This data spiting technique employs multiple wireless channels operating at the physical layer, …


Securing Critical Infrastructure: A Ransomware Study, Blaine M. Jeffries Mar 2018

Securing Critical Infrastructure: A Ransomware Study, Blaine M. Jeffries

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis reviews traditional ransomware attack trends in order to present a taxonomy for ransomware targeting industrial control systems. After reviewing a critical infrastructure ransomware attack methodology, a corresponding response and recovery plan is described. The plan emphasizes security through redundancy, specifically the incorporation of standby programmable logic controllers. This thesis goes on to describe a set of experiments conducted to test the viability of defending against a specialized ransomware attack with a redundant controller network. Results support that specific redundancy schemes are effective in recovering from a successful attack. Further experimentation is conducted to test the feasibility of industrial …


Expected Coverage (Excov): A Proposal To Compare Fuzz Test Coverage Within An Infinite Input Space, Evan V. Swihart Mar 2018

Expected Coverage (Excov): A Proposal To Compare Fuzz Test Coverage Within An Infinite Input Space, Evan V. Swihart

Theses and Dissertations

A Fuzz test is an approach used to discover vulnerabilities by intentionally sending invalid inputs to a system for the purpose of triggering some type of fault or unintended effect that renders the system vulnerable to an exploit. Fuzz testing is an important cyber-testing technique used to find and fix vulnerabilities before they are exploited. The fuzzing of military data links presents a particular challenge because existing fuzzing tools cannot be easily applied to these systems. As a result, the tools and techniques used to fuzz these links vary widely in sophistication and effectiveness. Because of the infinite, or nearly …