Homeland Defense / Critical Infrastructure Protection activities include a wide range of investigations and analyses intended to improve the U.S. defense and responsiveness to events that threaten it. They address chemical-biological events, weapons of mass destruction, critical infrastructure, cyber security and fail-safe/fault tolerant systems.

• Key Staff Members:
• Include David Nicholls who has more than 30-years’ experience in tailoring reliability practices for specific industry applications, whether they are health care, industrial or defense. Michael Weir leads cyber security related activities based on his 30-years’ experience in military communications systems development, deployment and testing. Mr. Weir is a well –respected researcher in network defense and has been involved with federal and joint exercises in disaster preparedness and emergency communications deployment in the Continental Unites States and abroad.
• Example Projects:
• Cyber Security/Information Assurance:
  • Secure Routing Architecture Analysis: This effort supported Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) to design, architect and build a secure trusted router overlay for military networks based on the realization that many of the infrastructure components that the military depends on for movement of data between military enclaves are commercial end items that may not be configured or manufactured to meet the full qualifications of military mission objectives. Threats to unencumbered movement and assured delivery are the normal physical shortfalls, such as interrupted flow due to broken cables or electrical outages, and the more offensive intentional threats such as malware and subverted infrastructure components. The trusted router effort seeks to remediate this shortfall by providing an overlay onto that infrastructure, with some level of redundancy, and architectural characteristics that allow confidence in the transport, delivery, and content commensurate with the criticality of the traffic.
  • Embedded Phoenix Code Base: Under this effort, Quanterion is providing AFRL expertise in applying the Phoenix architecture concepts and base code, currently a mix of Java and C++, to the Cognitive Processor (CogChip) in a careful and fully-documented way, such that the resulting embedded C++ code base supports fully military compliant deployment and operational utility as a component of the Content and Context-aware Router (C2TR) effort. The C2TR is a medium-term effort to provide a robust capability for military networks to support advanced information management concepts (content and context management of information objects) using a secure base provided by the hardware root of trust in the CogChip.
• Chemical Biological Defense/Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD):
  • WMD Monitoring Equipment: Under an Engineering and Management support contract to the Brookhaven National Laboratory, Quanterion performed an independent assessment of the equipment maintenance management system (EMIS) used by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for monitoring equipment used in controlling WMD-related stockpiles. Activities also included the development of guidelines for developing reliable/maintainable IAEA monitoring equipment.
  • Integrated Information Management System (IIMS): Quanterion has been supporting the AFRL on IIMS since 2006. It is the third generation of a command and control (C2) and chem/bio detector network that aids users at a site in the preparation for, operation during, and recovery from, a Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) or conventional attack or incident. The IIMS enhances situational awareness of personnel by recording, distributing, analyzing and visually displaying information of interest to the warfighter.
• Critical Infrastructure/Emergency Response:
  • Emergency Response:
    • Emergency Medical Facilities: Quanterion performed reliability and life-cycle cost analyses on transportable military medical facilities to support customer strategic planning and business development
    • Emergency Response Vehicles: Quanterion performed a study for the Warner Robins Air Logistics Center (WRALC) to assess the availability, maintenance strategy and failure trends of emergency response vehicles used on a range of Air Force bases. Along with the study, a Weibull analysis set of tools for softwaresoftware was developed to enable its staff to continue the analyses internally on a regular basis.
  • Critical Infrastructure: Under this initiative, Quanterion, as part of its operation of the Reliability Information Analysis Center (RIAC) collected system, equipment, and assembly data and information on items of interest to homeland security, and the nation’s critical infrastructure in general. It also developed a compendium of organizations within the government dealing with the diverse issues associated with Homeland Defense. Terrorist activities and recent national disasters have emphasized the need for this type of data in planning for, and reacting to, emergency situations. While the RIAC is already chartered with the collection of reliability data, the initiative proposed here represented a new application of its reliability expertise.
• Reliable/Fault Tolerant Systems
  • Reliability Information Analysis Center (RIAC): The Quanterion-operated RIAC is the DoD’s Center of Excellence in Reliability/Maintainability and Quality. Although chartered by the DoD, its activities, tools, models and databases are widely used across other homeland defense related industries. The Center’s design/analysis guides and failure-related models and databases are standard practices for all types of critical homeland defense equipment and systems. The RIAC staff supports U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and other government agencies in developing and implementing policies and practices that ensure high levels of system and service availability.
  • Cyber Security & Information Systems Information Analysis Center (CSIAC): With today’s dependence on software systems for reliable performance of homeland defense-related functions, the Quanterion-operated CSIAC is fulfilling a critical need in helping to define the means to develop better software, whether it is through its “Gold Practices” web content or through its Community of Practice (CoP)-facilitated “Software Development Tools and Technical Information Clearinghouse (SDTATIC)”.