Reliability Modeling of Bi-directional Circular Multi-State Sliding Window System for Sequential Tasks

This paper investigates a novel circular multi-state system model with bi-directional sliding window for sequential tasks. The multi-state elements (MEs) in our proposed system are mutually independent and circularly deployed. The functionality of our system depends on its ability to complete the pre-determined sequential tasks from any possible starting point with r consecutive MEs in either clockwise or counterclockwise directions. Then, we employ the universal generating function technique in the model description of the multiple states of the system and its MEs and the system reliability evaluation. Finally, analytical examples are provided for demonstration and illustration.