MRI: Development of Pulsar-based Power Grid Timing Instrumentation and Technology

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Power grids are vital links to achieve the essential continuity of electricity service from power plants to end-users. Wide-area measurement systems monitor bulk power grids and provide critical information for understanding and responding to power system disturbances to prevent blackouts. Existing wide-area measurement systems in the U.S. rely on the Global Navigation Satellite System (or GPS) to provide the timing source. However, GPS signals are vulnerable to malicious attacks. As many critical infrastructures depend on power systems, the increasing reliance of modern power systems on GPS has created a major risk for security of the U.S. economy and critical infrastructures. This project will develop a reliable pulsar-based timing system where the timing source is physically indestructible. Such a reliable timing system will improve the resilience of next generation U.S. power grids, and many other industry sectors that requires reliable and secure time synchronization, including communication systems, transportation systems, and the emergency service sector. The instrument will also provide many education resources and opportunities for K-12 and STEM students.The project's primary goal is to develop a pulsar-based timing instrument that is capable of providing accurate and stable timing signals that are immune to physical attacks and potentially revolutionize timing technologies. In particular, pulsar timing could reduce the dependency of modern electric power system on GNSS. This instrument will include four major parts, including: (1) a radio telescope array for pulsar signal reception; (2) a pulsar signal transmission and processing system to filter out noises and extract millisecond timing pulses from pulsar signals; (3) a timing signal generation system to output high-precision timing pulse; and (4) a timing distribution system to distribute the time signal generated by pulsar receiver system to power system devices. This instrument can facilitate a variety of cutting-edge research activities, including detection of GNSS outages and attacks, development of pulsar timing-based power system controllers, and integration with related GNSS/NTP/hybrid timing technologies. This instrument will become the first timing source that introduces celestial timing technology into industry applications and will also enable a series of applications that may have broad impacts on many other engineering systems that require accurate and secure time synchronization.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.