A BDD-based algorithm for reliability analysis of phased-mission systems

• Published in: IEEE transactions on reliability Vol. 48; no. 1; pp. 50 - 60
• Main Authors: Xinyu Zang, Nairong Sun, Trivedi, K.S.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY IEEE 01.03.1999; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
• Subjects: Aircraft; Algebra; Algorithm design and analysis; Algorithms; Applied sciences; Binary decision diagrams; Binary systems; Boolean functions; Cancellation; Computation; Data structures; Decision analysis; Exact sciences and technology; Fault trees; Lapping; Operational research and scientific management; Operational research. Management science; Reliability analysis; Reliability theory. Replacement problems; Sun; Transient analysis; Multiphase system; Binary decision diagram; System reliability; Fault tree; Algorithm
• ISSN: 0018-9529
• DOI: 10.1109/24.765927

This paper presents a new algorithm (PMS-BDD) based on the binary decision diagram (BDD) for reliability analysis of phased-mission systems (PMS). PMS-BDD uses phase algebra to deal with the dependence across the phases, and a new BDD operation to incorporate the phase algebra. Due to the nature of the BDD, cancellation of common components among the phases can be combined with the BDD generation, without additional operations; and the sum of disjoint products (SDP) can be implicitly represented by the final BDD. Several examples and experiments show that PMS-BDD is more efficient than the algorithm based on SDP, in both computation time and storage space; this efficiency allows the study of some practical, large phased-mission systems.