Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Projects/Programs

Displaying 1 - 25 of 28

Advanced DDoS Mitigation Techniques

Ongoing
Background In recent years the threat of DDoS) attacks on the Internet seems to be significantly increasing. The rapidly growing threat can be characterized by the orders of magnitude increases in the bandwidth of such attacks (from 100s of millions bits per second, to 100s of billions bits per

Advanced Security Architectures for Next Generation Wireless

Ongoing
The US Government, and the Department of Commerce in particular, has identified the development and commercialization of Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) technologies as a strategic priority in the evolution of next-generation wireless networks and a key enabler for the US IT industry to increase

Automated Vehicles and AV Communications

Ongoing
Automated vehicles (AVs), or Automated Driving Systems-equipped (ADS-equipped) vehicles, have great potential to improve our lives by freeing us from the stress of driving and reducing accidents caused by distractions or poor judgement. Connected, reliable, and safe AVs will spark significant

5G & Beyond

Ongoing
The realization of this long-term vision requires tackling key technical challenges to allow for greater temporal, spectral, coding and spatial resource efficiency. As well, these technologies all rely on high levels of electronic device integration, yielding a radical new connectorless measurement

RF Channel Propagation Measurements and Models for Communications Circuits

Ongoing
The research community has long identified the need for propagation measurements to develop and evaluate communication circuits. Since 2011, NIST has been to prototyping state-of-the-art channel sounders for measuring RF channel propagation. NIST current channel sounders include LIDAR and camera

Citizens Broadband Radio Service

Ongoing
The FCC Part 96 rules establish a three-tier architecture for sharing the radiofrequency (RF) spectrum from 3550 MHz to 3700 MHz. Commercial users of the 3.5 GHz Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) band will share this spectrum with existing incumbents, including the federal government which

Data-Driven Network Optimization for Future Wireless Systems

Ongoing
Research Highlights AI Innovations in Spectrum Sharing for Wireless Networks With the increasing demand for wireless communication, efficient spectrum management has become essential. NIST is exploring the application of AI/ML techniques to optimize this area, particularly through solutions like

Future Wireless Communications Systems and Protocols

Ongoing
​ Millimeter wave Communication Systems and Protocols 5G and beyond wireless communication systems make use of the Millimeter-Wave (mmWave) band. While this band offers unprecedented throughput thanks to the large bandwidth available, it also suffers from larger propagation loss compared to the sub

High Assurance Domains

Ongoing
The objectives of NIST’s High Assurance Domains (HAD) project are to design, standardize and foster wide scale adoption of technologies to improve the security, robustness and privacy of the Internet’s Domain Name System. A second dimension of the NIST’s effort is to explore ways to leverage a

Internet Infrastructure Protection

Ongoing
In the FY 2016 ITL staff made significant contributions in the design, standardization, test and measurement of technologies to improve the security and robustness of the Internet’s global routing protocol BGP. NIST staff are key contributors to Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standards to

Machine Learning for Internet of Things (IoT)

Ongoing
Resource Allocation in IIoT Systems As with any large an complex system, Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) deployments require the system operator to efficiently allocate the available bandwidth, computing, and energy resources. This is challenging because IIoT systems, especially large ones, can

Measurement Science for Complex Information Systems

Ongoing
What are complex systems? Large collections of interconnected components whose interactions lead to macroscopic behaviors in: Biological systems (e.g., slime molds, ant colonies, embryos) Physical systems (e.g., earthquakes, avalanches, forest fires) Social systems (e.g., transportation networks

Network Modeling for Public Safety Communications

Ongoing
Advances in broadband wireless technologies developed by standard developing organizations (SDOs) such as 3GPP and IEEE 802 offer unprecedented capabilities that have the potential to improve the effectiveness of first responders. Our efforts are aimed at evaluating how well emerging solutions meet

NextG Channel Measurement and Modeling

Ongoing
NextG Channel Measurement NIST has designed and assembled a number of mmWave channel sounders: from the first generation of electronically switched horn antenna arrays, moving to virtual phased-array, and most recently we are transitioning to real phased-array channel sounders. Several features make

NIST Automated Vehicles Program

Ongoing
Measurement science and standards are needed to support the safe and predictable operation of future automated vehicles (AVs), which have great potential to significantly impact our daily lives and improve the competitiveness of our economy. A FY22 NIST Strategic and Emerging Research Initiatives

Open RAN Research at NIST

Ongoing
Network Disaggregation An Open RAN gNB is a decentralized gNB and consists of three parts, each with its own hardware/software: Radio Unit (RU); Distributed Unit (DU); Control Unit (CU). Each unit in Open-RAN takes over a section of gNB tasks. The RU has the responsibility of transmitting and

Physical Layer Design and Evaluation

Ongoing
IEEE 802.11ay Physical Layer Modeling and Simulation NIST has developed models and simulation frameworks to evaluate the physical layer performance of IEEE 802.11ay under different channel environments based on real measurements. NIST IEEE 802.11ay EDMG Physical Layer Mode, implemented in MATLAB

Public Safety Communications Program

Ongoing
America’s first responders deal with emergencies every day. And whether it is a routine traffic stop, a multi-alarm fire, or a large-scale event, such as Hurricanes Harvey and Sandy, or the attacks on 9/11, the ability of first responders to communicate with each other--on-scene as well as through

Robust Inter-Domain Routing

Ongoing
Today’s global Internet is comprised of roughly 800,000 distinct destinations interconnected by 60,000 enterprise and Internet Service Provider (ISP) networks. The Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is the “glue” that enables the modern Internet, by exchanging reachability information about each

Smart Grid Communications

Completed
In 2007, Congress passed the Energy Independence and Security Act, which tasked NIST with developing standards and protocols to ensure that Smart Grid systems are interoperable. An important part of the Smart Grid is the communications infrastructure, which utilities use to send command information

Software Defined Virtual Networks

Ongoing
Background Data networks have enabled extraordinary growth in capabilities such as email, the web, and social media; and today form the technical basis for our information-centric economy [1]. However, current network architectures and processes for technical evolution cannot support the complexity

Trustworthy Intelligent Networks

Ongoing
Our current research efforts include: The application of AI/ML techniques to detect abuse of the Domain Name System (DNS). The development of measurement techniques to characterize the robustness of AI/ML approaches to botnet detection. The application of AI/ML techniques to detect anomalies in the

Trustworthy Networks Program

Ongoing
The need for Trustworthy Networking Internet Society Report on the Future of the Internet “Perhaps the most pressing danger to the future of the Internet is the rising scope and breadth of Cyber Threats.” “Addressing cyber threats should be the priority” “The scale of cyberattacks is steadily

Trustworthy Networks of Things

Ongoing
Our work focuses on network-centric approaches to improve the security and robustness of large scale deployments of IoT devices. The research and development of software-defined networking technologies in support of IoT security. The design and IETF standardization of Manufacturer Usage Description

Ultra-dense Networks

Ongoing
Propagation and system modeling: New propagation models are needed for ultra-dense networks. Driven by legacy cellular systems, most models currently available are tower-to-ground with base stations typically at 30 m and above. Device-to-device links, however, will be ground-to-ground: picocells on