Decomposition versus Minimal Path and Cuts Methods for Reliability Evaluation of an Advanced Robotic Production System

As complex systems have become global and essential in today’s society, their reliable design and the determination of their availability have turned into a very important task for managers and engineers. Industrial robots are examples of these complex systems that are being increasingly used for intelligent transportation, production and distribution of materials in warehouses and automated production lines. In this paper, two techniques of reliability evaluation are developed for a complex system of robots. Decomposition method and minimal path and cuts method are adapted for the proposed complex system. For practical implementation, a particular robot system is first modeled. Then, reliability block diagram is adopted to model the complex system for reliability evaluation purpose. Finally, the methods are implemented and their properties are discussed.