Cyber-physical Resilience of Power Systems

Power grids, like all large-scale critical infrastructure, are designed to be reliable. If a transformer fails or a utility pole goes down, grid operation suffers little or no disruption. But rare “extreme events” such hurricanes and cyberattacks can cause severe service interruption.

My research focuses on resilient power system operation and planning. Power systems have traditionally not been designed to withstand large-scale disruptions, which are infrequent but have severe consequences for grid operation. Such high-impact disruptions can be caused by natural disasters or deliberate attacks, are rarely predictable, and are usually too extreme for simple redundancy measures (eg. power reserves and additional transmission/distribution lines) to provide a cost-effective solution.

Resilience in Power Systems

Resilience is the ability of a system to mitigate and recover from highly disruptive events. In the context of power systems, it extends the concept of reliability, which has traditionally been confined to expected small-scale failures, to include unpredictable, high-impact failures.

Cyber-Physical Systems

Increasing penetration of information and communication technology (ICT) has transformed the modern power grid (along with other industrial control systems) into a cyber-physical system. Although the full potential of ICT remains to be realized, its advents has already introduced new security challenges due to the potential for cyberattacks that could severly impact the grid. Therefore, the domain of resilience must also include cyber-physical security.

Publications

All of my published research is available on this site. Accepted manuscript PDFs are available for articles in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings.