Simple and efficient self-healing strategy for damaged complex networks

TL;DR

This paper introduces a simple, local, and efficient self-healing algorithm for damaged complex networks that restores connectivity by adding short links based on local information, effectively re-connecting most nodes after damage.

Contribution

The authors propose a novel local self-healing strategy that uses shortest possible links to efficiently restore network connectivity without global knowledge.

Findings

Reconnected nearly 90% of airports after damage in US network

Operates efficiently on both model and real networks

Requires only local information for decision-making

Abstract

The process of destroying a complex network through node removal has been the subject of extensive interest and research. Node loss typically leaves the network disintegrated into many small and isolated clusters. Here we show that these clusters typically remain close to each other and we suggest a simple algorithm that is able to reverse the inflicted damage by restoring the network's functionality. After damage, each node decides independently whether to create a new link depending on the fraction of neighbors it has lost. In addition to relying only on local information, where nodes do not need knowledge of the global network status, we impose the additional constraint that new links should be as short as possible (i.e. that the new edge completes a shortest possible new cycle). We demonstrate that this self-healing method operates very efficiently, both in model and real networks. For example, after removing the most connected airports in USA, the self-healing algorithm re-joined almost 90\% of the surviving airports.