NIST Smart Connected Systems Newsletter – March 2022

NIST International Collaboration Develops New Framework for Smart Cities and Communities

Stakeholders Provide Input on Automated Vehicle Performance Metrics in NIST Workshop

NIST Releases Cybersecurity Guide for Manufacturing Control Systems

NIST Researchers Investigate a Hybrid Wired/Wireless Deterministic Network for the Smart Grid

University, NIST Researchers Offer Improved Quantum Measurement

Sign up for NIST's Public Safety Broadband Stakeholder Meeting

Virginia Tech Daily, Roanoke Star Report on VTTI-NIST Tool for Developing Automated Driving

Media Reports Credit NIST with Advancing an Understanding of Cyber-Physical Systems

NIST International Collaboration Develops New Framework for Smart Cities and 

Communities 
Have you ever wondered what it is about a smart city or community that makes it ‘smart?’ In an 

international collaboration with Dr. Martin Serrano of the National University of Ireland Galway, NIST 

researchers have answered that question.

Smart cities and communities commonly use metrics, or Key Performance Indicators (KPI), for 

evaluating or measuring their smart city ecosystems. However, many KPI approaches are limited by their 

technology- or sector-specific focus and their inability to measure benefits essential to assessing 

community impact and return on investment. To overcome this limitation, a Holistic Key Performance 

Indicators (H-KPI) Framework has been developed that builds on conventional KPI methods and 

accounts for unique characteristics such as varying districts and neighborhoods, differences in population 

and economic scale, the reuse of previously deployed technologies, and other factors relevant to a city or 

community. In this work, the term ‘smart’ in ‘smart cities’ is defined as the efficient use of digital 

technologies to provide prioritized services and benefits to meet community goals, such as economic 

vitality, equity, resilience, sustainability, or quality of life.

The H-KPI Framework is described in the recently published NIST Special Publication 1900-206 Smart 

Cities and Communities: A Key Performance Indicators Framework. The Framework provides the basis 

for developing measurement methods and tools that allow for integration, adaptability, and extensibility at 

three interacting levels of analysis: technologies, infrastructure services, and community benefits. The 

publication describes a H-KPI method which provides a structured representation of smart city and 

community information flows and enables computational methods for systems design, analysis, 

operations, and assurance. The five core metrics of the method are: 

• alignment of KPIs with community priorities across districts and neighborhoods; 

• investment alignment with community priorities; 

• investment efficiency; 

• information flow density; and 

• quality of infrastructure services and community benefits. 

Applications of the H-KPI methodology include strategic planning, systems design and assurance, and 

operations management. The approach will benefit future efforts in the NIST smart cities and 

communities program including the NIST Global City Teams Challenge.

In this collaboration, Dr. Serrano (Senior Research Fellow in the Insight Centre for Data Analytics at the 

National University of Ireland Galway) was supported by the NGI Explorers Program under the EC 

Horizons 2020 framework. 

Equipped with tools to measure progress, cities and communities can now navigate their course to a 

smarter future for their residents and businesses.

Media reporting on NIST's H-KPI Framework for smart cities and communities includes the following:

• Smart Cities Connect, NIST Holistic Key Performance Indicators Framework Expands Evaluation 

Criteria for Smart Cities, March 18, 2022

• IEC, Evaluating smart cities, March 16, 2022

• Smart Cities Dive, How smart is your city? NIST provides a framework to measure, March 14, 2022

• OpenGov Asia, NIST, U.S. Publishes Indicators for Smart Cities, March 7, 2022

• GCN, How smart is your city? NIST can help you find out. March 4, 2022
Stakeholders Provide Input on Automated Vehicle Performance Metrics in NIST 

Workshop 

NIST hosted the Standards and Performance Metrics for On-Road Autonomous Vehicles Workshop, 

March 7-8, 2022, with nearly 800 attendees from industry, academia, and government. The goal was to 

discuss the needs for standards, test methods, and performance metrics for autonomous vehicles, noted 

acting NIST Director, Jim Olthoff, who kicked off the workshop. Stakeholder collaboration is also 

required to help automated vehicles transform industries, mitigate vehicle accidents, cut carbon and more, 

stated Nellie Abernathy, acting Director, Office of Policy and Strategic Planning, Department of 

Commerce. 

Panels of experts addressed key areas for autonomous vehicles, which were safety, communications, 

artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and privacy, and sensor perception. Attendees further discussed these 

key areas in breakout sessions, with designated spokespersons summarizing their sessions' findings in the

concluding meeting with all workshop attendees. NIST plans to publish a report on the workshop. 

Workshop videos are available on the workshop webpage.

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NIST Releases Cybersecurity Guide for Manufacturing Control Systems

(NIST image)

The recently published IBM X-Force Threat Intelligence Index 2022 stated “For the first time in five 

years, manufacturing outpaced finance and insurance in the number of cyberattacks levied against these 

industries...” To help meet these growing cyber threats, NIST published Special Publication 1800-10 

Protecting Information and System Integrity in Industrial Control System Environments: Cybersecurity 

for the Manufacturing Sector, developed in collaboration with cybersecurity providers. Its goal is to help 

manufacturers protect Industrial Control Systems which enable management of machinery, production 

lines, and other physical processes that produce goods. Specifically, the guide seeks to help 

manufacturers: 

• Secure historical system data 

• Prevent execution or installation of unapproved software 

• Detect anomalous behavior on a network 

• Identify hardware, software, or firmware modifications

• Enable secure remote access

• Authenticate and authorize users

The guide offers four examples of practical solutions which manufacturers may adapt to their unique 

environments and needs. Each scenario is mapped to relevant NIST Cybersecurity Framework functions 

and subcategories and details security capabilities provided by proposed products. The solutions are 

consistent with other relevant practices and guidance, which the Guide lists. 

The Guide also points out the intended audiences – manufacturing's chief information officers, program 

managers, and information technology professionals in other sectors – and proposes how they may use the 
Guide. Additionally, NIST solicits feedback on the Guide, which can be provided at 

manufacturing_nccoe@nist.gov. 

Security Week reported on the publication in NIST Releases ICS Cybersecurity Guidance for 

Manufacturers, March 17, 2022.

NIST Researchers Investigate a Hybrid Wired/Wireless Deterministic Network for the 

Smart Grid

NIST researchers have published a technical paper in IEEE Wireless Communication: A Hybrid 

Wired/Wireless Deterministic Network for Smart Grid, to examine opportunities for new technologies to 

improve communications in certain power system domains. A key motivation is to address the lowlatency, low-jitter, and high-reliability requirements of time-critical applications, such as smart grid 

synchrophasor communications. 

In this publication, the authors consider a time synchronized network that uses a combination of Time 

Triggered Ethernet and 5G for high speed, ultra-reliable, and low-latency communications. In this 

example, the network distributes universal time and synchronizes grid devices to a common time source. 

NIST researchers point out that this hybrid network must have high reliability and low delay wireless 

communications capability to complement traditional wired communication attributes for application 

sensors and data streams to be most useful, wherever wired access is not available. Such a network would 

be able to reliably connect large numbers of Phasor Measurement Units which monitor the health of the 

power grid.

NIST researchers also address the challenges of implementing such a network. Specifically, they point out 

that the main challenge will be achieving interoperability between Time Triggered Ethernet and 5G ultrareliable, low-latency communications. Another technical challenge will be integrating wired and wireless 

networks in order to coordinate and synchronize timing. 
Researchers simulated a hybrid network, including solutions for these challenges, for synchrophasor 

applications. Researchers reported the simulation showed that the proposed, fully synchronized hybrid 

wired/wireless network could achieve high reliability and low jitter, which are essential for synchrophasor 

communications.

University, NIST Researchers Offer Improved Quantum Measurement

Quantum mechanics involves the study at the subatomic scale, where photons, electrons and other 

elementary particles can become the building blocks for future innovations. This research has led to 

better clocks, computers, and communications networks. The challenge is measuring the quantum state, 

which is needed to relate the quantum world to our "classical" macroscopic world. 

University of Maryland and NIST researchers experimentally developed a way to improve such 

measurements, which is described in Experimental Shot-by-Shot Estimation of Quantum Measurement 

Confidence in Physical Review Letters. Essentially, researchers obtained confidence estimates for 

quantum state measurements and then verified estimates by matching them to observed success 

probabilities, averaged over a large number of measurements. Here, confidence is a quantum analog of 

accuracy and it is estimated separately for each laser pulse under measurement. This method was 

demonstrated by continuously counting photons in a single laser pulse over its duration; these were then 

compared to the averaged fidelity of measured outcomes. These verified estimates proved more accurate 

than ideal classical measurements which were found by simulations. 

This research makes single-shot confidence estimation available to others for use. The single-shot 

confidence estimation vector can be used to discard low confidence quantum measurements and can help 

correct measurement errors. This result can potentially improve optical classical networks by reducing the 

energy requirements at the receiver.
Sign up for NIST's Public Safety Broadband Stakeholder Meeting 

NIST's Annual Public Safety Broadband Stakeholder Meeting will bring together representatives from 

public safety, federal agencies, industry, and academia, in its first in-person gathering in three years. The

2022 meeting is hosted by NIST's Public Safety Communications Research (PSCR) Division, which 

seeks to drive research, advancing communications technologies for the public safety community, 

in partnership with its stakeholders. These annual stakeholder meetings provide PSCR with direct input, 

guidance, and feedback from this diverse stakeholder community.

The 2022 meeting will emphasize opportunities for PSCR staff, partners, and stakeholders to reconnect. 

Industry leaders and public safety partners will address cutting-edge technology findings, features, and 

functionalities. NIST's PSCR engineers and researchers also will provide testing updates, upcoming 

R&D, and opportunities for involvement. The 2022 meeting offers: 

• Over 50 research presentations, available on-demand, prior to the meeting

• Five plenary sessions

• Over 15 breakout sessions 

• Over 25 technology demonstrations

• Scheduled informal networking

Registration is open and online. A block of hotel rooms has been set aside for meeting participants at the 

Westin San Diego Gaslamp Quarter, and rooms can be reserved online. 
Virginia Tech Daily, Roanoke Star Report on VTTI-NIST Tool for Developing Automated 

Driving 

Virginia Tech Daily reported Virginia Tech Transportation Institute researchers develop an open-access 

interactive tool to advance automated driving systems across the country, on March 3, 2022. The report 

identified that NIST-funded development of the tool, termed "Operational Design Domain Element 

Quantification Element," provides developers with critical information needed to safely and effectively 

deploy automated driving systems. The report quotes NIST's Ed Griffor, “The ability to determine 

whether the capabilities of automated driving systems are sufficiently exercised in the testing 

environment is critical to understanding their safety, and this tool aims to show it is feasible.” The report 

also provides a link to a video demonstrating the tool. The Roanoke Star also reported on this work, on 

March 4, 2022.

Media Reports Credit NIST with Advancing an Understanding of Cyber-Physical Systems
"Innovative cyber-physical systems are already ushering in the next Automation Age,” reported The ST 

Blog in How New Cyber-Physical Systems are Making a Positive Difference,March 1, 2022. The ST Blog

further reported that this is a new type of automation, largely due to the confluence of these cyber and 

physical systems, and that the rate of automation will increase significantly in the coming years. The ST 

Blog article also was published in ELE Times and Electronics Online, both on March 28, 2022.

The ST Blog credited NIST with formalizing the term, "cyber-physical systems" in itsSpecial Publication 

1500-201 Framework for Cyber-Physical Systems: Volume 1, Overview, which describes CPS as “smart 

systems that include engineered interacting networks of physical and computational components.” The ST 

Blog also said that many have asked about the difference between CPS and the Internet of Things (IoT) 

and that NIST again helped clarify through its Special Publication 1900-202 Cyber-Physical Systems and 

Internet of Things. The ST Blog ST adopted the interpretation that CPS is a superset that includes IoT and 

that CPS provide control systems, mostly absent in traditional IoT.

In COVID’s Silver Lining: The Acceleration of the Extended IoT, February 16, 2022, Security Week also 

cited NIST's Cyber-Physical Systems website which defines CPS as “comprising interacting digital, 

analog, physical, and human components engineered for function through integrated physics and logic.” 

The article reported that the COVID-19 pandemic forced many organizations to rapidly adopt the use of 

CPS/IoT based on the value it delivers, enabling them to move forward faster, securely, and with no 

turning back. 

Additionally, Forbes reported on The Security Challenge Of Protecting Smart Cities (which use CPS), 

October 10, 2021. It pointed out that NIST's Smart Cities and Communities Framework applies best 

practices in providing cities and communities with technical guidelines for planning, developing, and 

implementing smart solutions.