Reliability evaluation of hierarchical power control systems and design of component redundancies

This paper presents a simplified yet practical method to be used for quick evaluation of the reliabilities of hierarchical power control systems consisting of control computers, a variety of regulating devices and human operators interconnected by communication networks. The quantity "percent loss of information" is defined and used as a measure to evaluate the overall reliabilities of hierarchical computer control complexes. The proposed method is tested for a simple control system and the result checked against the Monte Carlo approach. It is then applied to 2- and 3-level hierarchical power control system models. Further applications of the method such as the design of component redundancies are also discussed.