Reliability Modeling for Intelligent Water Distribution Networks

In cyber-physical systems, communications, computing, and information about the system's requirements and operational state are used to streamline and fortify physical operations. Techniques exist for assessment, modeling, and simulation of physical and cyber infrastructures, respectively, but such isolated analysis is incapable of fully capturing the interdependencies that occur when they intertwine to create a CPS. Our research seeks to develop models that capture these interdependencies, while accurately reflecting the operation and attributes of the cyber and physical infrastructures. In this paper, we use intelligent water distribution networks (WDNs) as a model problem. We propose an agentbased qualitative model for a WDN, as well as a Markov decision process model, which is quantitatively analyzed using SHARPE. Our models facilitate comparison of the reliability of purely physical systems to their intelligent counterparts – an important task in light of the increasing reliance of critical infrastructure systems on computing and communication.