An Integrated Approach for Simulating Interdependencies

The detailed simulation of interdependent critical infrastructures is a hard problem. Major challenges include modeling multiple heterogeneous infrastructures in a single framework and expressing internal dependencies and interdependencies between infrastructures. This paper attempts to address these issues by proposing a simulation framework where several sector-specific simulators (vertical simulators) are integrated into a general simulation environment (horizontal simulator). Specialized software implemented in the vertical simulators models individual infrastructures and their intra-domain dynamics. The horizontal simulator effectively captures inter-domain relationships and merges heterogeneous information from the vertical simulators to facilitate comprehensive infrastructure simulations.