Reliability Analysis of Deteriorating UAV Systems with Redundancy

Nowadays cost of unmanned aerial vehicle design and manufacturing decreases, and this leads to widespread use of unmanned aerial vehicles in many applications. The stability of unmanned aerial vehicle systems functioning is supported by operation system. The technical condition of structural systems of unmanned aerial vehicle during operation can deteriorate due to faults and damages of equipment, aging of electronic components, environmental conditions and others. One of the ways to increase the reliability in case of technical condition deterioration is usage of equipment redundancy. This paper concentrates on comparative analysis of reliability parameters in case of unmanned aerial vehicle systems technical condition deterioration and these systems operation without and with redundancy. The analytical equations for probability characteristics of reliability parameters after occurrence of technical condition deterioration are obtained. The paper presents results of steady-state availability calculation of unmanned aerial vehicle system in case of redundancy and technical condition deterioration. The research results can be implemented while designing unmanned aerial vehicle systems.