Development of the algorithm of reliabilitycentered maintenance of phased array antennas
The strategy and algorithm of reliability-centered maintenance of active phased array antennas are developed. The use of this strategy and algorithm makes it possible to determine the time and volumes of corrective replacements of the antenna subarray modules based on the results of predicting the reliability indexes of the array antenna as a whole. This procedure is performed as a result of consistent refinement of statistical estimates of reliability indexes of the modules during the normal operation of the phased array antenna. For processing statistical information on the failures of the array antenna modules and determining the estimates of the sample mean, upper and lower confidence limits, the method of quantiles is used. As the law of distribution of the operating time of the array antenna modules, the combination of exponential and diffusion nonmonotonic distributions is used. The example of implementation of the reliability-centered maintenance strategy and algorithm for the receive phased array antenna including 100 antenna subarrays is presented. The results of the research can allow organizing the APAR condition-based maintenance and minimizing the operating costs. Implementation of the obtained results can ensure failure-free operation of active phased array radars during operation with the timely provision of antenna subarrays with spare modules.