Aggregated semi-Markov repairable systems with history-dependent up and down states

Some states in the aggregated semi-Markov repairable system with history-dependent up and down states are changeable in the sense that whether those physical states are up and down depends on the immediately preceding state of the system evolution process. Two reliability indices of the system, the frequency of failures and the time to the first system failure are given. The Laplace–Stieltjes transforms of several time distributions in a cycle, such as the up and down time, the total time the system is in the up, down and changeable states, the length of a single sojourn in the up, down and changeable states are derived. The means of them are also presented. Markov renewal theory, transform and matrix methods are employed for getting these performance measures. A numerical example is given to illustrate the results in the paper.