Risk Control of Mission-Critical Systems: Abort Decision-Makings Integrating Health and Age Conditions

The mission abort is an effective action to reduce the risk of casualties and enhance the survivability of mission-oriented systems, such as aircrafts, submarines, and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). A key target of operators in real mission environment is to strive for balance between the success possibility of a mission and system survivability (SS), via elaborate mission abort plans. In this article, we design mission abort policies based on two crucial information: 1) degradation degree of monitored health features, and 2) system age. Accordingly, the operators may abort the mission if the degradation attains a preset control limit at early system ages, or continue the task otherwise. We carry out loss analysis to determine the optimal abort action, by linking MSP and SS. Structural insights regarding the optimality of degradation control limit as well as age threshold are explored. For a comparative purpose, the performances of some heuristic abort policies are analytically evaluated. We make contribution by scheduling mission abort plans harnessing both condition monitoring and age information, which promotes the timeliness and robustness of risk control. A case study on inertial navigation systems of UAV executing line inspection missions is used to illustrate the applicability and superiority of the proposed abort policies.

Automated summary

This article explores how to design mission abort policies in order to balance the possibility of mission success and system survivability in a mission environment. By considering the degradation degree of monitored health features and system age, operators can abort the mission at early system ages if the degradation reaches a preset control limit. The performance of some heuristic abort policies is analyzed for comparison. The contribution of this article lies in scheduling mission abort plans that utilize both condition monitoring and age information, which enhances the timeliness and robustness of risk control. A case study on inertial navigation systems of UAV executing line inspection missions is used to demonstrate the applicability and superiority of the proposed abort policies.