Communication infrastructure design for strategic power infrastructure defense (SPID) system

Power systems can become vulnerable in the face of possible power system abnormalities. To maintain system reliability becomes a serious concern for the future. The SPID project was launched by EPRI/DoD to understand the origin and nature of catastrophic failures and to develop defense strategies and technologies that will significantly reduce the vulnerability of the power system infrastructure. The approach is characterized by the extensive use of network and real time information from diverse sources, coupled with the development of an evolving dynamic decision event tree. This paper examines the communication issues for the SPID system including information transmission network design and data exchange architecture design. A communication infrastructure design for the SPID system is also proposed. Rather than specifying the detailed network design, the paper provides an overview of the architecture issues.