CoTRE - Complexity Twin for Resilient Ecosystems

Lead Research Organisation: University of Warwick
Department Name: Sch of Engineering

Abstract

As we accelerate into the 21st century, our backbone engineering systems are becoming increasingly complex and connected. Many of our critical infrastructure ecosystems are comprised of interdependent sub-systems, each governed by complex non-linear dynamics and cascade interactions. The CoTRE project will build a mathematical mirror to the UK's critical infrastructure ecosystems. The "complexity twin" will be a world first attempt to understand the resilience of large-scale complex systems that increasingly face threats from man-kind and nature. The project will address the fundamental theoretical aspects of the stability of complex systems and work with a variety of critical infrastructure operators to develop short term and long term resilience investment strategies.

Planned Impact

The CoTRE project constitutes world's first "complexity twin" of its connected infrastructures - focused on understanding the mathematical relationship between the resilience of individual functional sub-systems and the resilience of networked systems. The project will address the fundamental theoretical aspects of the stability of complex networks. By bringing together academic and industrial experts from network theory, non-linear dynamics, critical infrastructure (CI) operators, the translational impact will transform the way CI ecosystems operate and invest, as well as inform both the government and secondary industries. Unlike simulation-based digital twins, the complexity twin offers mathematical understanding of resilience bounds. As a concrete outcome, the project will deliver the world's first demonstration of a complexity twin based on UK's 3 critical infrastructure systems.
 
Description We are able to predict the hidden collapse mechanisms in complex networked systems (e.g. telecommunication, electricity, natural ecosystems) that cause a loss of resilience. As such we are able to go forward and make informed maintenance and devise protection measures. We have developed specific ways to either analyse the problem from system models or from data, such that accurate inferences can be made using the minimum amount of information. Statistical guarantees that link to engineering models provide a degree of explainable intelligence, building trust between new methods and classical engineering wisdom.
Exploitation Route We are in discussion with a number of critical infrastructure operators and engineering firms to take this forward into informing their practice in maintenance and operations of large scale systems.
Sectors Aerospace

Defence and Marine

Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software)

Security and Diplomacy

Transport
 
Description We have furthered the understanding of connected resilience, especially when the connections behave with nonlinear dynamics. We see this across infrastructure (water, gas, electricity grids), and social networks (online social media influence). We have since used our work to apply to both case in innovative ways. In infrastructure, we discovered that new common connected features that can be used to create passwords (cipher keys) that can encrypt any digital data in infrastructure. This led to a EPSRC PETRAS pilot project (GraphSec) which is helping British Water and its water distribution network stakeholders rethink water security. In social systems, we have since won UK DSTL (ACC6005162) and US DoD (FA8655-20-1-7031) contracts to understand the resilience and influence of entities on social media, helping them identify influencers, bad influence, and understand how networked resilience contributes to healthy social outcomes online. The work on networked tipping points also contributed to the report on "Global Tipping Points Report" showcased and released at the UN COP28 in 2024 and the associated technical papers, which has wide spread impact on climate change governance policy.
First Year Of Impact 2019
Sector Aerospace, Defence and Marine,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Environment,Government, Democracy and Justice,Security and Diplomacy,Other
Impact Types Societal

Policy & public services
 
Description Behavioural Analytics for Defence and Security
Amount £99,315 (GBP)
Funding ID ACC6005162 
Organisation Defence Science & Technology Laboratory (DSTL) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2019 
End 11/2019
 
Description COCKPIT 5G - Crowd Blackspot Intelligence for 5G Rollout
Amount £210,000 (GBP)
Funding ID 29634 
Organisation Innovate UK 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 05/2019 
End 03/2020
 
Description Physical Graph Based Wireless IoT Security with No Key Exchange (GraphSec)
Amount £235,000 (GBP)
Funding ID A1GW441 
Organisation PETRAS 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 11/2021 
End 05/2023
 
Description EPSRC ENCORE+ Feasibility Study Collaboration 
Organisation Cranfield University
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution The study will use multi-modal transport data, and explore the coupling between small-scale failures (e.g. an accident leading to road closure) and large-scale effects (e.g. cascade effects leading to increased vulnerability to further failures). The scientific innovation is in drawing lessons from resilient ecosystems, where a coupled organism-environment system co-evolves to minimise a cascade of failures, to inform the design of real-time traffic routing mechanisms and long-term transport infrastructure investment strategies.
Collaborator Contribution ENCORE+ has provided invaluable mentorship, forum for discussion on resilience in engineering, and future collaboration opportunities.
Impact A Journal paper was submitted to Royal Society Open Science journal.
Start Year 2017
 
Title Graph Hierarchy Extraction 
Description A package to get the hierarchical levels and influence centrality of a graph 
Type Of Technology Webtool/Application 
Year Produced 2019 
Impact N/A 
URL https://github.com/gmoutsin/GraphHierarchy.jl
 
Description A talk at Alan Turing Institute 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Over the past 150 years, we have built up really good understanding of how individual sub-systems behave. As we connect more and more "things" and "people" together through digital and mechanical technology, we must ask how network topology affects their performance and resilience. This problem is challenging when the size of the network becomes large and run away cascades can cause regional to national scale catastrophes. Here, we offer some initial research into finding the specific relationship between networked dynamics (stability, rate of convergence) and the network topology (eigenvalue, degree). We showcase results for both natural ecosystems and built infrastructures, ranging from water distribution, to transport, to telecommunications. We also point towards methods to reconfigure the topology in a way that stabilises the system, but highlight a regulatory paradox.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
URL https://www.turing.ac.uk/events/resilience-networked-infrastructure-what-can-topology-and-dynamics-t...
 
Description Department of Transport Workshop 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact Workshop on security for transport.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
 
Description Invited Talk at British Water 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Presentation on networked resilience to industrial leaders at British Water
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
 
Description Invited Talk at Royal Statistical Society Annual Conference 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact A 20-30m presentation on resilience of networked infrastructures.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
URL https://events.rss.org.uk/rss/frontend/reg/tAgendaWebsite.csp?pageID=59058&eventID=194&mode=
 
Description Networked Resilience Workshop with ENCORE+ 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact A 1 day workshop on using AI to understand resilience in networked systems, such as fibre networks and civil engineering infrastructures.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
 
Description Research Engagement with EPSRC ENCORE+ Program 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact A 7 month joint research study between Turing DCE researchers and ENCORE+ researchers was conducted in order to improve engagement bewteen the programs. Further action will be taken to develop pathways for joint proposals.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
 
Description Special Interest Group on Urban Analytics (SIG-UA) 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact This SIG-UA arranged approx. 5 workshop meetings where a number of research talks were given by academics to industrial practioners, government people, and other academics.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017,2018
URL https://www.turing.ac.uk/research_projects/urban-analytics/