Parametric Design of Resilient Complex Networked Systems

Engineered systems are becoming increasingly complex and interconnected, requiring consideration of their resilience to potential network threats. We therefore explore a parametrically defined network design space to further understand properties and design choices that promote resilience in complex networked systems. This design space focuses on three aspects of a network: its initial topology, adaptation strategy, and threat faced. We assess network resilience using complex network properties and a resilience engineering approach. The proposed methods are applied to an agent-based information exchange network simulation, developed to represent a general class of networked systems relying on message passing among nodes. We find that resilient networks tend to have more random, rather than scale-free initial topologies, regardless of the threat faced. However, the optimal adaptation strategy shows a sharp transition from fully random to fully degree-based once a critical point is reached for threat randomness. These results demonstrate the value of thoroughly exploring the network design space, expanding upon insights gained from existing point design analyses. This work further confirms the importance of understanding fundamental behaviors of complex networked systems.