Impact of Cascading Failure on Power Distribution and Data Transmission in Cyber-Physical Power Systems

In this paper, we study the dynamic of cascading failure iterating between physical power grid and communication network, and further propose the attack strategy to locate the critical nodes which can seriously damage the cyber-physical power systems. First, the coupling connection between physical power grid and communication network is modeled, along with the power flow of physical power grid and the data flow of communication network. Then, the zone-based coupling model is proposed to detail the failure cascading in systems and its impact on coupled networks. Third, based on electrical and structural characteristic, the criticality of nodes is defined to devise attack strategy to locate the vulnerability of systems. The simulation has analyzed the impact of failure nodes on coupled networks and verified the effectiveness of proposed attack strategy.