Event-Triggered Control Strategies for Networked Systems Under Cyber Attacks

Event-triggered control strategies have emerged as a pivotal approach to ensuring resilient performance in networked cyber-physical systems subject to malicious interventions. By transmitting information only when pre­scribed state-dependent conditions are met, these methods alleviate network congestion while preserving stability and robustness. Under cyber attacks—such as denial-of-service, deception or false-data injection—event-triggered schemes can incorporate adaptive thresholds or memory-based criteria to detect anomalies, adjust triggering frequency and mitigate the impact of compromised data. Stability is typically guaranteed by Lyapunov or Lyapunov–Krasovskii functionals, yielding conditions expressed as linear matrix inequalities. Recent advances focus on co-designing control laws and triggering rules to balance security, resource efficiency and control performance. Practical implementations span smart grids, autonomous vehicles, industrial automation and large-scale sensor networks, where timely detection of attacks and efficient use of limited bandwidth are crucial. Integration of stochastic models for attack behaviour and time-varying delays has further broadened applicability, ensuring rigorous performance under uncertain and adversarial environments.

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Event-Triggered Control Strategies for Networked Systems Under Cyber Attacks publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in event-triggered control strategies for networked systems under cyber attacks across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Event-triggered mechanism: A communication strategy that initiates data transmission only when system states satisfy specific triggering conditions, reducing unnecessary network traffic.

Denial-of-Service (DoS) attack: A cyber assault that disrupts normal communication by blocking or flooding the network link, causing packet loss or delays.

False data injection attack: A malicious act where attackers insert fabricated or altered sensor/actuator data to mislead the control system.

Deception attack: An adversarial strategy that manipulates transmitted information to appear authentic, aiming to degrade control performance or stability.

Lyapunov stability: A mathematical criterion ensuring that system trajectories remain bounded and converge to desired states based on a constructed energy-like function.

Linear Matrix Inequality (LMI): A convex constraint expressed in terms of matrix inequalities, widely used to derive tractable conditions for controller and trigger-rule synthesis.

References

1. Adaptive Event-Triggered Path Tracking Control for Self-Driving Vehicles Against Denial-of-Service Attacks. IEEE Access (2023).
2. Sigmoid-like Event-Triggered Security Cruise Control under Stochastic False Data Injection Attacks. Processes (2022).
3. Security Control for Adaptive Event-Triggered Networked Control Systems Under Deception Attacks. IEEE Access (2020).