Decision diagrams method for k-out-of-n: G systems

Binary k-out-of-n system is a commonly used reliability model in engineering practice. Many researches have extended the concept of k-out-of-n system to multi-state k-out-of-n systems. This paper proposes a binary decision diagram (BDD) based approach for binary k-out-of-n system: G system and a multi-state multi-valued decision diagram (MMDD) based approach for multi-state k-out-of-n: G system. BDD and MMDD have been extensively used for representing and manipulating logic functions in many areas, including reliability modeling and analysis. In this paper, patterns of BDD/MMDD for binary/multi-state k-out-of-n: G system are summarized and proved, and a two-step algorithmic process is proposed for modeling BDD/MMDD, a case is implemented to demonstrate the performance of the presented method.