Performability analysis of multi-state sliding window systems

This paper models and evaluates the performability of a sliding window system (SWS) with multi-state components. Different components may have different numbers of states, characterized by state probability and performance rate distributions. Multiple consecutive components form groups with identical or different sizes. The accumulation (sum) of performance rates of components within the same group defines the group performance; the minimum of the group performance defines the system performance. The performability of an SWS is concerned with the probability that the system performs at a particular system performance. In this paper, a multi-valued decision diagram (MDD)-based analytical approach is proposed for the performability analysis of SWSs. The approach encompasses a compact system MDD generation based on the group MDD generation and combination, and evaluation of the resultant MDD model to obtain the system performability measures. Case studies are performed to demonstrate the proposed MDD approach as well as effects of component allocation on the system performability.