The protection of critical assets is of utmost importance to Sandia National Laboratories as well as the nation. The National Security Engineering Institute (NSEI) allows engineers and computer scientists to gain practical experience in developing and integrating security systems with both hardware and software components.
The mentors and staff of the NSEI program have developed a unique environment that challenges students to solve security problems with practical solutions—either customized or commercial off-the-shelf systems—that may be easily implemented and supported.
The NSEI program was developed to share and expand knowledge in the security arena while developing potential employees.
NSEI interns can expect to work on projects that develop the necessary engineering skills for protecting critical assets. Sample projects include the following:
NSEI seeks to develop computer-vision and machine-learning algorithms for use in exploratory, autonomous security systems. This work is central to the success of the project and requires analytical programming skills (Matlab, C, C++, or C#). Accomplishments to date include designing a Bayesian network to evaluate sensor readings, constructing hidden Markov models, and training decision trees. Students interested in this area might consider exploring Jess, a rule engine and scripting environment for the Java platform developed by Sandia/California, and Avatar Tools, codes that specifically implement ensembles for decision trees. Computer-vision algorithms are being explored as a way to identify and track items of interest, such as humans within a secure room. Students wishing to work in this area should be familiar with or interested in learning about stochastic methods, probability theory, image processing, machine learning, and artificial intelligence.
NSEI explores various aspects of wireless technology, including hardware implementation and the development of robust wireless-network protocols. Our wireless-communications challenges vary in range from a single room to satellite links and vary in complexity from distributed mesh networks to point-to-point security. Students have a wide variety of tools to aid them, including commercial off-the-shelf components as well as custom-made hardware. Students can solve problems using a high-level systems engineering approach or develop their own ways of using different hardware and software. Students will be mentored by professionals with a wide range of backgrounds and skill sets. The bottom line is that students develop their own solutions to problems in a flexible, academic setting that seeks to encourages innovation, while providing expert support.
Sandia engineers debug commercial circuits for use in a project prototype.
NSEI engages in a wide variety of engineering projects aimed at protecting the nation’s interests. Students will learn to use and enhance a variety of commercial off-the-shelf hardware to meet project requirements. Past electronic-development projects include embedded-systems circuit design, prototyping, test, and fabrication. Mechanical projects include enclosure design and fabrication, stress testing, and material characterization. Students will also be able to put into practice their knowledge of fundamental science and participate in multidisciplinary R&D involving biology, chemistry, and materials science.
Sandia technical staff experimenting and exploring the applications of gaming for serious applications, such as education and training.
Serious gaming tests provide invaluable resources to the NSEI project. The generally accepted definition of “serious games” is using modern gaming technologies for education, training, health, and public policy. Game technologies provide an ideal simulation environment for these types of problems, which require or benefit from humans in the computational loop—both to interactively direct or influence a simulation and to act as an integral computational element. Characterizing the latter is the desire to learn about human behavior as opposed to instilling a desired behavior. The intuitive interfaces of these environments make them easy to pick up and use, eliminating the need for the advanced training sessions often required by traditional simulations. The immersive qualities of serious games can replicate real-world conditions that affect human behavior and, therefore, the simulation itself. For example, gaming can help test a system against attack scenarios developed by coworkers. Game technology has been driven by the needs of millions of consumers, resulting in a vast amount of production-quality infrastructure. Serious games are also the perfect paradigm for scenarios that simply cannot be performed physically (either in sufficient quantities or at all) due to time, cost, or scheduling constraints. This allows the training and testing of physical security systems against explosives, fire, and other destructive forces.
