Apr. 29, 2014
The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) recently awarded four UT Austin faculty $1 million for a study regarding effects and reparation efforts following weapons of mass destruction (WMD) attacks on interdependent networks.
The project will focus on developing theoretical and computational approaches to outages and performance degradation in electric power, communications, transportation networks and other critical infrastructure that occurs following WMD attacks. Air-traffic, water, food and trade are other physical networks the research plans to review, as current dependence on these resources is unprecedented.
The goal of the project is to develop faster and more effective relief efforts and recovery times following an attack.
Prof. Ross Baldick from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) will direct the project, with help from ECE professor Alexis Kwasinski, Chandra Bhat from the Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering and Sriram Vishwanath, Wireless Networking & Communications Group (WNCG).
Prof. Chandra Bhat from the Center for Transportation Research (CTR) will use his expertise in travel demand modeling and travel behavior analysis to determine the flow of contamination throughout networks. Ph.D. students will also participate in the project.
The funding will pay out over a three-year period and has the potential to increase over time. Read the full article here.
