Optimization of robustness of network controllability against malicious attacks

Abstract

As the controllability of complex networks has attracted much attention recently, how to design and optimize the robustness of network controllability has become a common and urgent problem in the engineering field. In this work, we propose a method that modifies any given network with strict structural perturbation to effectively enhance its robustness against malicious attacks, called dynamic optimization of controllability. Unlike other structural perturbations, the strict perturbation only swaps the links and keeps the in- and out-degree unchanged. A series of extensive experiments show that the robustness of controllability and connectivity can be improved dramatically. Furthermore, the effectiveness of our method is explained from the views of underlying structure. The analysis results indicate that the optimization algorithm makes networks more homogenous and assortative.