A Method for Optimal Allocation of Defensive Alternatives: Analysis of a Strategic Interaction with a Multi-objective Approach

摘要

Compelled by recent astonishing and catastrophic events, academic community and society as a whole have paid attention at methods that aid stakeholders in making decisions regarding investments in more effective defense systems. This paper aims at providing a method devised to support decision makers who are interested in allocating investments in security systems that may be subjected to purposeful attacks. Thus, it considers the strategic interactions between two rational agents: (i) a defender who wants to protect critical parts of the main system (e.g. power transmission lines, oil tankers, banks, museums, among others) via a security structure and (ii) an attacker who is interested in shutting the defense system down so as to obtain free access to the main system. The methodology proposed in this article uses Game and Reliability Theories and Multi-objective Genetic Algorithm (MOGA) to model this strategic interaction, which is analyzed in terms of a sequential game in the scenarios of complete/perfect and incomplete/imperfect information. An application example involving data from a real power system line is provided.