SMCS/SMPS Simulation Algorithms for Estimating Network Reliability

네트워크 신뢰도를 추정하기 위한 SMCS/SMPS 시뮬레이션 기법

To estimate the reliability of a large and complex network with a small variance, we propose two dynamic Monte Carlo sampling methods: the sequential minimal cut set (SMCS) and the sequential minimal path set (SMPS) methods. These methods do not require all minimal cut sets or path sets to be given in advance and do not simulate all arcs at each trial, which can decrease the valiance of network reliability. Based on the proposed methods, we develop the importance sampling estimators, the total hazard (or safety) estimator and the hazard (or safety) importance sampling estimator, and compare the performance of these simulation estimators. It is found that these estimators can significantly reduce the variance of the raw simulation estimator and the usual importance sampling estimator. Especially, the SMCS algorithm is very effective in case that the failure probabilities of arcs are low. On the contrary, the SMPS algorithm is effective in case that the success Probabilities of arcs are low.