Maximizing Algebraic Connectivity of Constrained Graphs in Adversarial Environments

Abstract

This paper aims to maximize algebraic connectivity of networks via topology design under the presence of constraints and an adversary. We are concerned with three problems. First, we formulate the concave maximization topology design problem of adding edges to an initial graph, which introduces a nonconvex binary decision variable, in addition to subjugation to general convex constraints on the feasible edge set. Unlike previous methods, our method is justifiably not greedy and capable of accommodating these additional constraints. We also study a scenario in which a coordinator must selectively protect edges of the network from a chance of failure due to a physical disturbance or adversarial attack. The coordinator needs to strategically respond to the adversary's action without presupposed knowledge of the adversary's feasible attack actions. We propose three heuristic algorithms for the coordinator to accomplish the objective and identify worst-case preventive solutions. Each algorithm is shown to be effective in simulation and we provide some discussion on their compared performance.