Automated generation of mission reliability simulation model for space tracking, telemetry and control system by extensible markup language and extended object-oriented Petri net

To evaluate and optimize the space tracking, telemetry and command system design, it is important to perform mission reliability analysis of tracking, telemetry and command system. Considering the complexity of tracking, telemetry and command system configuration and mission process, it is nearly infeasible to model and analyze the system by manual work. For accuracy and efficiency reasons, system designers need to have an integrated set of methods and tools for modeling specifications and performing reliability analysis. This article presents an XML-based (extensible markup language–based) schema named reliability modeling language to formally represent data and information, which are necessary for building the mission reliability model of tracking, telemetry and command system. To facilitate the evaluation of mission reliability measures, we propose the improved extended object–oriented Petri net formalism, which is an extension of object-oriented Petri net to perform mission reliability simulation and analysis. The standard descriptive model in reliability modeling language can be automatically and directly transformed into an extended object–oriented Petri net model by applying model transformation rules and algorithm. The proposed approach is illustrated and validated by examples, which consider the complex situation such as component phase dependence, non-exponential failure rate, instantaneous repair as well as different work start and end time. The simulation results show a good approximation compared with the results of analytical models.