Least square approach for system reliability optimization†

A system design engineer often resorts to redundancies while maximizing the probability of success of a system designed to perform a certain job over a period, This will have to be done within the resources available. The problem of maximizing system reliability, subject to some linear constraints such as cost, weight or volume, is considered in this paper- The usual problem is transformed to a suitable form and the least square concept is used to develop a solution technique. This type of approach is found to be very simple and faster than earlier methods although the solution is an approximate one.