Future Directions in Navy Electronic System Reliability and Survivability

摘要

The rapid expansion of the threat to US Naval forces has made complex sensor systems and combat direction systems indispensable to the Fleet. Increasing complexity has led to decreasing reliability, which results in degraded Fleet readiness and morale as well as increased logistics and maintenance costs. A scheduled-maintenance policy is proposed as one remedy to these problems. To implement this policy, electronic systems which are very reliable and which include health and readiness monitoring capability must be developed. Fault tolerance is one discipline for the design of such systems. Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) will provide a cost-effective integrated circuit technology from which to build fault-tolerant systems. Navy ships and task groups must be able to continue operation in spite of partial losses; this implies a need to distribute vital data, data-processing capability, and communication capability through the use of intraship and intership networks. The capability to build electronic equipment that requires only scheduled maintenance and that is survivable through networking will be realized through (1) definition of a framework for the specification of reliability, monitoring and survivability requirements, and costs; (2) capture of reliable system design techniques; (3) development of a survivable-network design methodology; and (4) development of an electronic system design facility. (Author)