An evidential approach to physical protection system design

A physical protection system (PPS) integrates people, procedures, and equipment for the protection of assets or facilities against theft, sabotage, or other malevolent intruder attacks. The physical protection components (detection, delay, and response) within a facility interact with each other and their locations significantly affects the effectiveness of PPS. This paper proposes a method based on an evidential approach to evaluate the risk level of PPS and optimally locate the physical protection components to balance cost and performance. Each individual component of the system is modeled in a simulated plane. Then, the risk level distribution of each component is determined based on its actual environment. The comprehensive risk level distribution is obtained by combining information from multiple sources within the framework of Dempster-Shafer evidence theory. Finally, optimization algorithms are used to find the optimal locations. A hypothetical example is discussed which demonstrates the usefulness of the developed methodology.