Automatic construction of a reliability model for a phased mission system

There are a number of mathematical modelling techniques available to determine the reliability of any system design, for example Fault Trees, Event Trees etc. These models relate the performance of the system to the performance of the components of which it is comprised and are generally quite difficult to construct. Once constructed the analysis of the models can be performed using commercially available software. This stage of the analysis is well developed and can be performed efficiently. The model construction however is a lengthy process and reduces the impact of the reliability study on the system design. One way of improving this situation would be to automate the construction process. In this work a procedure is developed to automatically generate a reliability model, based upon Petri Nets, for a system undertaking a phased mission.