Seminar: Attack Vulnerability of Power Systems Under an Equal Load Redistribution Model by Talha Cihad Gülcü

SEMINAR 

Abstract:

This work studies the vulnerability of flow networks against adversarial attacks. In particular, consider a power system (or, any system carrying a physical flow) consisting of N transmission lines with initial loads L1, L2, …, LN and capacities C1, C2,…, CN, respectively; the capacity Ci defines the maximum flow allowed on line i. Under an equal load redistribution model, where load of failed lines is redistributed equally among all remaining lines, we study the optimization problem of finding the best k lines to attack so as to minimize the number of alive lines at the steady-state (i.e., when cascades stop). This is done to reveal the worst-case attack vulnerability of the system as well as to reveal its most vulnerable lines. We derive optimal attack strategies in several special cases of load-capacity distributions that are practically relevant. We then consider a modified optimization problem where the adversary is also constrained by the total load (in addition to the number) of the initial attack set, and prove that this problem is NP-Hard. Finally, we develop heuristic algorithms for selecting the attack set for both the original and modified problems. Through extensive simulations, we show that these heuristics outperform benchmark algorithms under a wide range of settings.

Short Bio: 

Talha Cihad Gülcü got his B.S. degree from Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering and Department of Mathematics at Middle East Technical University in 2009. He completed M.S. degree in electrical engineering department of Bilkent University, in 2011. Then, he went to USA to pursue a PhD degree. He studied information theory under the supervision of Prof. Alexander Barg (current editor-in-chief of IEEE Transactions Information Theory) and his PhD studies focused on the application of polar coding techniques to design and analysis of communication schemes. In 2015, he was awarded PhD in electrical engineering by University of Maryland College Park. His research interests include stochastic processes, optimization theory, deep learning models, and distributed networks.  His Erdos number is 4. He is a member of Phi Kappa Phi since 2016.


All interested are cordially invited.  

DATE    : Friday, January 24, 2020 
TIME    : 15:00-16:00 
ROOM  : VYKM 2, 5th floor of Engineering Building (Perkins Hall)