Modelling Reliability-adaptive Multi-system Operation

This contribution discusses the concept of Reliability-Adaptive Systems (RAS) to multi-system operation. A fleet of independently operating systems and a single maintenance unit are considered. It is the objective in this paper to increase overall performance or workload respectively by avoiding delay due to busy maintenance units. This is achieved by concerted and coordinated derating of individual system performance, which increases reliability. Quantification is carried out by way of a convolution-based approach. The approach is tailored to fleets of ships, aeroplanes, spacecraft, and vehicles (trains, trains, buses, cars, trucks, etc.) - Finally, the effectiveness of derating is validated using different criteria. The RAS concept makes sense if average system output loss due to lowered performance level (yielding longer time to failure) is smaller than average loss due to waiting for maintenance in a non-adaptive case.