Performance Evaluation of Multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Operating in General Regime with Shortage of Maintenance Facilities

Joseph Kreimer

doi:10.4236/jcc.2016.410008

Abstract

We consider a real-world problem of military intelligence unit equipped with multiple identical unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) responsible for several regions (with requests of real-time jobs arriving from independent sources). We suppose that there are no ample maintenance facilities, allowing simultaneous treatment of all vehicles if necessary. Under certain assumptions, these real-time systems can be treated using a queueing theory methodology and/or as Markov chains. We show how to compute steady-state probabilities of these systems, their performance effectiveness, and various performance parameters (for exponentially distributed service and maintenance times of UAVs, as well as tasks duration and their arrival pattern).

Highlights

From the earliest days of warfare, military commanders have wanted to know what lies over the hill
Modern airborne reconnaissance structures rely on a combination of satellites, aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV)
We study the problem of multiple UAVs operating in general regime with limited maintenance facilities

Summary

Introduction

From the earliest days of warfare, military commanders have wanted to know what lies over the hill. (2016) Performance Evaluation of Multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Operating in General Regime with Shortage of Maintenance Facilities. It would assimilate the data, recognize and control events, create a mosaic of what is happening at any time and provide a real-time decision support [1]. It is difficult to overestimate their role in real-time intelligence gathering, round-the-clock surveillance and day/night reconnaissance operations These aircrafts are indispensable in monitoring restricted, hard-to-reach and dangerous locations. In [25], such effectiveness measures as computation reliability and computation availability for gracefully degradable multiprocessor computer system were introduced These ideas were generalized in [26], where the concept of performability was formally defined. We study the problem of multiple UAVs operating in general regime with limited maintenance facilities (extension of [28]).

Description of the Model

Steady-State Probabilities

Performance Effectiveness Index and Other Performance Characteristics

Numerical Results

Conclusion