Optimal investment in power system for defending against malicious attacks through defender-attacker-defender model and mixed strategy Nash equilibrium

Abstract

One of the most important infrastructures in a country is the electric power grid. Undoubtedly, the performance of other critical structures severely depends on the power system. In this paper, the problem of protecting the system is formulated as a three-player game (defender-attacker-defender). The optimal strategy for the above game is obtained based on mixed strategy Nash equilibrium (MSNE). This study employed a genetic algorithm to seek the mixed strategy Nash equilibrium point. The results in this study show that: 1) the application of the three player game theory model could provide an optimal investment strategy for power systems against malicious attacks; 2) line-switching is a useful tool for improving the power network performance; 3) the proposed model accounts for the relationship between the defending budget, recovery time and the expected payoff; 4) using GA to solve MSNE allows to obtain the optimal response in an agreeable time.