System-of-systems approach

Energy, telecommunications, transportation, and financial infrastructures are becoming increasingly interconnected, thus, posing new challenges for their secure, reliable and efficient operation. All of these infrastructures are, themselves, complex networks, geographically dispersed, non-linear, and interacting both among themselves and with their human owners, operators, and users. No single entity has complete control of these multi-scale, distributed, highly interactive networks, nor does any such entity have the ability to evaluate, monitor, and manage them in real time. In fact, the conventional mathematical methodologies that underpin today’s modeling, simulation, and control paradigms are unable to handle the complexity and interconnectedness of these critical infrastructures.