Con-resistant trust for improved reliability in a smart grid special protection system

Abstract

This article applies a con-resistant trust mechanism to improve the performance of a communications-based special protection system to enhance its effectiveness and resiliency. Smart grids incorporate modern information technologies to increase reliability and efficiency through better situational awareness. However, with the benefits of this new technology comes added risks associated with threats and vulnerabilities to the technology and to the critical infrastructure it supports. The research in this article uses con-resistant trust to quickly identify malicious or malfunctioning (untrustworthy) protection system nodes to mitigate instabilities. The con-resistant trust mechanism allows protection system nodes to make trust assessments based on the node's cooperative and defective behaviors. These behaviors are observed via frequency readings which are prediodically reported. The trust architecture is tested in experiments comparing a simulated special protection system with a con-resistant trust mechanism to one without the mechanism via an analysis of variance statistical model. Simulations result show promise for the proposed con-resistant trust mechanism.