Modeling region-based interconnection for interdependent networks

Various real-world networks interact with and depend on each other. The design of the interconnection between interacting networks is one of the main challenges to achieve a robust interdependent network. Due to cost considerations, network providers are inclined to interconnect nodes that are geographically close. Accordingly, we propose two topologies, the random geographic graph and the relative neighborhood graph, for the design of interconnection in interdependent networks that incorporates the geographic location of nodes. Differing from the one-to-one interconnection studied in the literature, one node in one network can depend on an arbitrary number of nodes in the other network. We derive the average number of interdependent links for the two topologies, which enables their comparison. For the two topologies, we evaluate the impact of the interconnection structure on the robustness of interdependent networks against cascading failures. The two topologies are assessed on the real-world coupled Italian Internet and the electric transmission network. Finally, we propose the derivative of the largest mutually connected component with respect to the fraction of failed nodes as a robustness metric. This robustness metric quantifies the damage of the network introduced by a small fraction of initial failures well before the critical fraction of failures at which the whole network collapses.