Today’s infrastructure is connected in ways not always known until problems like extreme weather, diseases, major accidents, terror, or cyber threats arise.
Say fuel delivery will be delayed. What can be done?
Sixteen critical infrastructure sectors—including water, gas, energy, communications, and transportation—are linked and interdependent. The National Science Foundation is supporting new fundamental research to transform infrastructure from physical structures to responsive systems. The Critical Resilient Interdependent Infrastructure Systems and Processes (CRISP) program supports a collaborative project for Laura Brown, along with Wayne Weaver, and Chee-Wooi Ten, associate professors of electrical and computer engineering at Michigan Tech, and colleagues from the University of New Mexico, Texas Tech University, University of Tennessee–Knoxville, and Fraunhofer USA Center for Sustainable Energy Systems.
Motivated by distributed renewable resources like solar panels and wind turbines, Brown and her research partners seek to ensure the resiliency of three interdependent networks: the electrical grid, telecommunications, and related socio-economic behavior. The team will look at how people react to power management in extreme conditions. Understanding and modeling human responses is necessary in the design of intelligent systems and programs embedded in devices that control and consume power.