Mission abort policy balancing the uncompleted mission penalty and system loss risk

Highlights: • Mission abort policy for systems working in random environment is considered. • The mission is aborted when mth shock occurs before time ξ since the mission start. • A tradeoff between expected costs of system loss and uncompleted work is analyzed. • Algorithm for optimal choice of the decision variables m and ξ is suggested. Mission abort policy is an effective tool for enhancing survivability of many real-world systems when a failure during a mission results in a substantial economic loss. When continuation of a mission is associated with high risks, its primary task can be aborted and a rescue procedure can be initiated to enhance survivability, and therefore, to decrease losses. When the uncompleted tasks for the aborted mission are associated with monetary losses, the tradeoff between the possible losses associated with the uncompleted mission and with the system failure should be balanced. In this paper, we develop a methodology for evaluating the expected uncompleted fraction of a mission and survivability of systems experiencing both internal failures and external shocks. We consider a policy when a mission is aborted and a rescue procedure is activated if the mth shock occurs before time ξ since the mission start. Then we demonstrate the tradeoff between the probability of a system loss and the expected uncompleted fraction of a mission and formulate the corresponding problem of the optimal choice of the decision variables m and ξ. An illustrative example of a mission performed by an unmanned aerial vehicle is presented.