Reliability analysis of missions with cooperating platforms

A phased mission analysis approach for cooperating platforms is outlined in this paper, when a common mission goal is achieved through collaboration of a number of individual platforms. Phase failure probabilities for individual platform mission and the overall mission are used to measure the mission success. Since any platform capability can degrade during the mission, the mission failure probability can exceed an acceptable level and mission reconfiguration is then considered. Phase failure models are built, updated and analyzed using fault trees converted to binary decision diagrams (BDD), due to the efficiency and accuracy of the BDD method required to support decisions on the operation of complex systems. The application of the methodology in the decision making strategy is illustrated using a multiplatform phased mission example from the military arena.