An Object-Oriented Simulation Model for Reliability of PMS with Time Redundancy

Phased-mission system (PMS) can have a number of mission phases with different system configurations of components. In engineering practice, there exist PMSs that have phases with time redundancy, meaning that the system is required to work in operational state for only a given duration of time within such phase, instead of all the phase duration like traditional PMS. For such complex PMS, it is not easy to evaluate its mission reliability by traditional analytical methods. This paper presents a simulation approach for PMSs with repairable components and time redundancy by object oriented system design. The simulation model is constructed by integrating different kinds of object components, including system component objects, phase objects and a PMS object. The attributes and operations of each object are described. Mission reliability evaluation is based on the event-scheduling simulation method that implemented by an event scheduler object. The proposed model has good modularity and clear structure. It can be applied to different kinds of PMS just by introducing related objects. The model and simulation results of a simplified PMS are given for illustrative purpose.