Resilient control systems

A resilient control system is one that maintains state awareness and an accepted level of operational normalcy in response to disturbances, including threats of an unexpected and malicious nature".

Computerized or digital control systems are used to reliably automate many industrial operations such as power plants or automobiles. The complexity of these systems and how the designers integrate them, the roles and responsibilities of the humans that interact with the systems, and the cyber security of these highly networked systems have led to a new paradigm in research philosophy for next-generation control systems. Resilient Control Systems consider all of these elements and those disciplines that contribute to a more effective design, such as cognitive psychology, computer science, and control engineering to develop interdisciplinary solutions. These solutions consider things such as how to tailor the control system operating displays to best enable the user to make an accurate and reproducible response, how to design in cybersecurity protections such that the system defends itself from attack by changing its behaviors, and how to better integrate widely distributed computer control systems to prevent cascading failures that result in disruptions to critical industrial operations.

In the context of cyber-physical systems, resilient control systems are an aspect that focuses on the unique interdependencies of a control system, as compared to information technology computer systems and networks, due to its importance in operating our critical industrial operations.