Dynamics and resiliency of networks with concurrent cascading failure and self-healing

Abstract

Local attacks in networked systems can often propagate and trigger cascading failures. Designing effective healing mechanisms to counter cascading failures is critical to enhance system resiliency. This work proposes a self-healing algorithm for networks undergoing load-based cascading failure. To advance understanding of the dynamics of networks with concurrent cascading failure and self-healing, a general discrete-time simulation framework is developed, and the resiliency is evaluated using two metrics, i.e., the system impact and the recovery time. This work further explores the effects of the multiple model parameters on the resiliency metrics. It is found that two parameters (reactivated node load parameter and node healing certainty level) span a phase plane for network dynamics where three regimes exist. To ensure full network recovery, the two parameters need to be moderate. This work lays the foundation for subsequent studies on optimization of model parameters to maximize resiliency, which will have implications to many real-world scenarios.