US-France Collaboration: Exploratory Research on Artificial Immunity in High Speed Trains

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The research objective of this project is to explore the feasibility of utilizing the emerging computational intelligence discipline of artificial immune systems (AIS) in the realm of diagnostics in high-speed trains. The proposed research will catalyze a strong research collaboration between Prof. D. Djurdjanovic?s team at the Univ. of Texas at Austin (UT) and Prof. N. Zehrouni?s team at the FEMTO-ST Institute of the Univ. of Franche-comté in Besançon, France (FEMTO-ST stands for Franche-comté Electronique Mécanique Thermique et Optique ? Sciences et Technologies).The researchers will leverage prior achievements of the UT team in the area AIS inspired diagnostics and on-going research by the French team in the area of predictive maintenance of TGV trains (TGV is a well-known French acronym for ?Trains à Grande Vitesse? ? ?High Speed Trains?). The team will explore the mechanisms of generation and distribution of ?immunity carriers? across various subsystems of a TGV train, as well as the interaction mechanisms between the immunity carriers and the monitored system that would lead to precedent-free isolation of subsystem(s) that behave abnormally. The term precedent-free here pertains to the ability to deal with anomalies that were not foreseen during the design stage and for which fault models or training data do not exist. Such capability will be analogous to the biological systems ability to detect and isolate antigens (viruses, bacteria) that have never been encountered before. In the final weeks of the project, the team will devise a follow up proposal that will aim at deepening our understanding and perfecting the AIS paradigm in high-speed rail (HSR) systems.Broader Impacts. In 2001, the US economy spent more than $1 trillion to maintain critical assets with more than 33% of these costs being wasted on ineffective maintenance (unnecessary repairs, repairs of wrong components, lack of spare parts etc.). The AIS paradigm pursued in this project addresses this tremendous societal need by exploring a new paradigm that promises to increase the resilience and improve operation of engineering systems in the future. The ability to deal with unprecedented faults will lead to reduced waste of resources due to more effective maintenance interventions, as well as the improved usage and productivity due to higher availability of equipment. In addition, our focus in high-speed trains has a significant broad impact all by itself. HSR systems have been shown in various parts of the world to yield increased energy efficiency, decreased emissions and automobile traffic, while increasing safety and reliability. Several studies on proposed HSR systems in the US show that, on the emissions side alone, HSR systems have the capability of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2.7 million metric tons and producing only 24% of the emissions of auto and air traffic (see Broader Impacts section of the proposal for details). It is the PI?s hypothesis that it is only a matter of time before HSR systems become much more prominent, and perhaps even prevalent in the US. The proposed research will be an important contribution to the scientific basis necessary for safe and cost-effective operation of these systems. Numerous potentials exist for extension and impact of the proposed research beyond HSR systems. These opportunities include computer and communication network security, product design improvement based on information from product?s AIS, diagnostics in various systems of the human body and, perhaps in the far future, augmentation of the human immune system with artificially engineered immunity carriers (T-cells, B-cells, leukocytes).