Expert System CRIPS: Support of Situation Assessment and Decision Making

Abstract

The increased interconnection of critical infrastructures increases the complexity of dependency structures and – as consequence – the danger of cascade effects, perhaps causing area-wide blackouts in power-supply and communication networks. The network-operation is already supported by simulations providing information about the behavior of the network in real and planned situations. But blackouts nevertheless cannot always be avoided. To mitigate the danger of blackouts it is a precondition, that additional information about the current situation are available in time to support its assessment as well as the decision-making. For this purpose IABG develops an expert system CRIPS to support the assessment of current situations and the “strategic decision making” in emergency situations. The assumption is, that in addition to the results of simulations the results of emergency exercises, experience with real blackouts and the knowledge of experts should be immediately available in case of emergency situations to avoid developments towards blackouts.