Prof. Zussman receives an NSF grant
07/07/2010
Categories: Research, Funding
Prof. Gil Zussman and Dr. David Hay along with Prof. Alon Efrat
(University of Arizona) and Prof. Eytan Modiano (MIT) have been awarded
a $454,000 grant from the Trustworthy Computing program of the National
Science Foundation. The grant is entitled "Protecting Networks from
Large-Scale Physical Attacks and Disasters" and the proposal was
motivated by the fact that telecommunication networks play a vital role
in all sectors of our society and are especially important during a
crisis. Since networks rely on physical infrastructure (e.g., fibers and
routers), they are vulnerable to natural disasters, such as earthquakes
and floods, or physical attacks, such as an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP)
attack. The project will study the impact of a disaster or an attack on
the telecommunications infrastructure and will develop mechanisms to
mitigate their effect.
In particular, the project will consider events that cause a large
number of failures in a specific geographical region. It will use
probabilistic and geometric failure models that take into account the
geography of the network and the attack characteristics. Under these
models, techniques to identify the most vulnerable parts of the network
will be developed. Moreover, tools to provide a-priori protection plan
will be designed. Finally, restoration algorithms that will improve the
resilience of the network will be developed. The project will provide a
fundamental understanding of the vulnerability of networks to disasters
or attacks. It will also provide network algorithms to mitigate the
impact of, and recover from, such disasters and attacks.
The project was discussed in PhysOrg.com and in a Public Radio interview.