A Sequential Testing Procedure for a System´s State Identification

The system and its components have only two states: complete success or complete failure. The components´ states are random variables and the system´s state depends deterministically on the states of its elements. This paper assumes the state of the system is unknown and presents a sequential testing procedure of the components in order to determine the system´s state. The procedure minimizes the expected number of necessary tests for a wide class of systems. The procedure is needed when the system is entirely or partially consumed upon its use, e.g., the firing of a missile, and one wishes to know the system´s state without actually operating the system.