Optimal Mission Abort Policy for Systems Operating in a Random Environment.

Area of Science:

• Reliability Engineering
• System Survivability
• Risk Management

Background:

• Critical systems like aircraft and submarines use mission aborts to improve survivability.
• Malfunctions in systems exposed to external impacts are often consequences of these impacts.
• Traditional reliability models do not adequately address mission abort scenarios.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a methodology for modeling and evaluating mission success probability and survivability.
• To analyze systems experiencing both internal failures and external shocks.
• To investigate a mission abort policy triggered by the mth shock.

Main Methods:

• Development of a novel methodology for system reliability modeling.
• Inclusion of mission abort policies based on shock occurrences.
• Analysis of the trade-off between system survivability and mission success probability.

Main Results:

• A method to quantify mission success probability and survivability under shock conditions.
• Demonstration of the trade-off influenced by the choice of the decision variable 'm' (number of shocks).
• An illustrative example using an unmanned aerial vehicle mission.

Conclusions:

• The proposed methodology effectively models systems with internal failures and external shocks.
• The decision variable 'm' is crucial for balancing system survivability and mission success.
• This research provides a framework for optimizing mission abort strategies in critical systems.