Robustness of complex networks with the local protection strategy against cascading failures

Considering the role of the neighboring nodes of an overload node, we articulate a local protection strategy to address the problem of the optimal defense in the cascading propagation. From two aspects of the global robustness and the different attacks, we numerically demonstrate the effectiveness of this strategy on Barabasi-Albert (BA) scale-free networks and the power grid, and show that the robustness of diverse networks against cascading failures can be improved dramatically. And we numerically find the optimal value of the parameter, at which two types of networks can reach the strongest robust level against cascading failures. Next, in BA networks we verify this finding by theoretical analysis. Our results may be very useful for constructing the optimal protection strategy in realistic networks and for leading to insights into the mitigation of cascading failures. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.