High level architecture-based framework for modeling interdependent critical infrastructure systems

Abstract

Interdependencies among urban critical infrastructure systems (CISs) significantly impact the reliability and performance of CISs and the resilience of modern societies. Although several approaches exist for modeling interdependent CISs and studying their behavior, models developed in previous studies often fail to incorporate CIS domain knowledge, capture systemic heterogeneities among the CISs, and accurately model CISs interdependencies. Consequently, existing models have a limited ability to simulate interdependent CISs with sufficient detail and accuracy. To address these limitations, this study proposes a high-level architecture (HLA)-based framework for modeling interdependent CISs that can leverage and integrate well-tested practices, knowledge, data and simulation tools accumulated over years of wide usage in various CIS domains. The framework provides a methodology for co-simulating heterogeneous fine-grained CIS domain-specific models and modeling complex interactions between them and with their external environments, hence reproducing with high fidelity the complex coupled systems. A case study of two interdependent power and water systems was conducted, which demonstrated the efficacy of the proposed framework. Simulation results revealed that the HLA-based CISs model could capture the heterogeneous behaviors of the CISs and reveal a variety of failure-induced system vulnerabilities and feedback loops which may not be observable when using other existing modeling approaches.