March 28, 2005—New software can help anti-terrorism planners determine how best to allocate limited resources to defend military bases, industrial parks and civic facilities from terrorist attacks, say the Penn State researchers who built the system.
The software is described in a paper titled “Optimizing Anti-Terrorism Resource Allocation” that appears in a recent issue of the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology.
Protecting buildings from terrorist attacks can include anything from blast-resistant glazing of windows to enhanced lighting and additional guards. Because anti-terrorist mitigations are expensive, deciding what, how, where and when to allocate resources to protect critical infrastructure is a challenge, according to the researchers. Considerations include protecting people, mission importance, cost and time to replace and access to and location of alternative facilities.
While the software was designed for the military, it can be used to help protect government facilities, commercial buildings, public sites such as convention centers or installations from hydroelectric dams to power plants, the researchers say.
The research was supported by the U.S. Marine Corps and the Marine Corps Research University at Penn State. For more on the study, visit the Penn State Web site.
