Using mobile agents and overlay networks to secure electrical networks

Abstract

The use of wandering, mobile agents can provide a robust approach for managing, monitoring, and securing electrical distribution networks. However, the topological structure of an electrical network can affect the agents' ability to monitor the network. For example, if the multi-agent system relies on a regular inspection rate (on average, points of interest are inspected with equal frequency), then locations that are not well connected within the network will on average be inspected less frequently. This results in lower observability into network operations and it also allows issues, either simple faults or adversarial actions, to persist longer in the network before they can be identified and addressed.This paper discusses creation and use of overlay networks that create a virtual grid graph that can provide faster coverage and a more uniform average agent sampling rate. Using overlays, agents wander a virtual neighborhood consisting of points of interest that are interconnected in a regular fashion (each point has the same number of neighbors). Experimental results show that using an overlay can often provide better network coverage and a uniform inspection rate, which can improve cyber security by providing a faster detection of threats.