Generating Robust and Efficient Networks Under Targeted Attacks

Abstract

The design of efficient large scale networks is a common problem in Operations Research. Some of those, such as electric power grids, transportation systems, communication networks, and others, must maintain their efficiency even after several failures, or malicious attacks. In this work, we outline a procedure that modifies any given network to enhance its robustness, defined as the size of its largest connected component, whilst keeping a high efficiency, which is described in terms of the shortest paths among nodes. We also show that this generated set of networks is very similar to networks optimized for robustness in several aspects such as high assortativity and an onion-like structure.