New Approaches to Protecting Transportation Infrastructure

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。这笔拨款为探索新的交通安全系统范例提供了资金，这些范例是主动的，并满足了我们国家交通基础设施的需求。将探索控制理论和马尔可夫决策过程模型和算法的方法，以创建基于风险和多层次的新一代安全系统，因此，在经济和操作上可行，稳健和可持续。鉴于恐怖分子仍然热衷于扰乱和破坏我们的商业航空系统，航空安全是这类系统的主要应用领域。创建稳健和可持续的交通基础设施安全系统的要求建议设计利用实时，最新的安全信息，这使得控制理论和马尔可夫决策过程模型非常适合利用和管理此类系统中固有的不确定性和动态。控制理论模型中的反馈机制也为设计和分析新颖的系统方法提供了一个结构，以最佳地利用现有和未来的安全技术能力和信息源。本研究的结果将提供一种系统的方法来比较和评估不同类型的基于风险的多层次运输安全系统设计和运行，包括新的和现有的安全技术。这种方法也有可能用于设计和实施新的运输安全系统，在现有或未来二十年可能拥有的安全资源和技术的情况下，这些系统能够提高可达到的安全水平。这项研究的结果也可以用来量化不同类型的运输安全技术的新投资的价值，例如，确定它们对加强国内机场航空安全的潜在影响。最后，本研究将为下一代交通安全系统范式性能规范的发展提供见解，这些规范将在现有和预测的预算约束下推进可实现的安全水平的边界。

This award is funded under the American Recovery Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). This grant provides funds to explore new transportation security system paradigms that are proactive and meet the needs of our national transportation infrastructure. Methodologies from control theory and Markov decision process models and algorithms will be explored to create a new generation of security systems that are risk-based and multi-level, and hence, economically and operationally viable, robust, and sustainable. Given that terrorists remain enamored with the drama of disrupting and inflicting damage on our commercial aviation system, aviation security is the primary domain of application for such systems. The requirement to create robust and sustainable transportation infrastructure security systems suggests designs that exploit real-time, up-to-the-minute security information, which makes control theory and Markov decision process models ideally suited to exploit and manage the uncertainty and dynamics inherent in such systems. Feedback mechanisms in control theory models also provide a structure to design and analyze novel, systematic approaches to optimally exploit both existing and future security technology capabilities and information sources. The results of this research will provide a systematic approach to compare and evaluate different types of risk-based, multi-level transportation security system designs and operations that incorporate both new and existing security technologies. This approach also has the potential to be used to design and implement new transportation security systems capable of enhancing the level of security attainable given the security resources and technologies that are currently available or may be available in the next twenty years. The results of this research may also be used to quantify the value of new investments in different types of transportation security technologies, to determine, for example, their potential impact on enhancing aviation security at airports within the nation. Lastly, this research will provide insights into the development of next generation transportation security system paradigm performance specifications that will push forward the boundary of achievable levels of security, given existing and forecasted budgetary constraints.