A hierarchical multi-agent dynamical system architecture for resilient control systems

Resilient control systems refers to the ones that maintain state awareness and an accepted level of operational normalcy in response to disturbances, including threats of an unexpected and malicious nature. In this paper, we propose a notional research philosophy and resulting framework based on a three-layer architecture of hierarchical multi-agent dynamic systems (HMADS). While a number of different alternatives have been proposed for distributed control system design, few provide the level of integration necessary to support claims of superior performance over traditional designs. We discuss multiple notional attributes associated with HMADS, namely, their functionalities, hardware independence and intelligence. We provide a framework for design of HMADS, and use power systems as a notional example as an illustration of the HMADS design philosophy.