Cyber-Physical Security for Additive Manufacturing Systems

Project Overview:

Goal:

To develop methods for detecting and preventing cyber attacks on additive manufacturing systems through education, process monitoring, and the design of security features.

Description:

One of the key advantages of additive manufacturing (AM) is its digital thread, which allows for rapid communication, iteration, and sharing of a design model and its corresponding physical representation. While this enables a more efficient design process, it also presents opportunities for cyber-attacks to impact the physical word. This project examines potential attack vectors along the Additive Manufacturing process chain. Specifically, the effects of cyber-physical attacks, and potential means for detecting them.

The potential for attacks has been demonstrated by placing voids and maliciously altering process parameters in sample parts. Techniques for detecting and preventing this type of attack include in-situ monitoring of the AM physical process in order to construct a representative “signature” for each part as a function of the part’s manufacturing process. This signature can then be used as a comparison tool to determine if a separate part instance was manufactured with the same process. Other techniques include embedding recoverable part signature information into the part itself, enabling an automated, air-gapped monitoring system to validate the part.