On auxiliary entity allocation problem in multi-layered interdependent critical infrastructures

Abstract

Operation of critical infrastructures are highly interdependent on each other. Such dependencies causes failure in these infrastructures to cascade on an initial failure event. Owing to this vulnerability it is imperative to incorporate efficient strategies for their protection. Modifying dependencies by adding additional dependency implications using entities (termed as auxiliary entities) is shown to mitigate this issue to a certain extent. With this finding, in this article we introduce the Auxiliary Entity Allocation problem. The objective is to maximize protection in Power and Communication infrastructures using a budget in number of dependency modifications using the auxiliary entities. The problem is proved to be NP-complete in general case. We provide an optimal solution using Integer Linear program and a heuristic for a restricted case. The efficacy of heuristic with respect to the optimal is judged through experimentation using real world data sets with heuristic deviating 6.75% from optimal on average.