We assess the Value of Information (VoI) for inspecting components in systems managed
by multiple agents, using game theory and Nash equilibrium analysis. We focus on binary systems made up by binary components which can be either intact or damaged. Agents taking maintenance actions are responsible for the repair costs of their own components, and the penalty for system failure is shared among all agents. The precision of inspection is also considered, and we identify the prior and posterior Nash equilibrium with perfect or imperfect inspections. The VoI is assessed for the individual agents as well as for the whole set of agents, and the analysis consider series, parallel and general systems. A negative VoI can trigger the phenomenon of Information Avoidance (IA), where rational agents prefer not to collect free information. We discuss whether it is possible that the VoI is negative for one or for all agents, for the agents with inspected or uninspected components, and for the total sum of VoIs.
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Optimal inspection of binary systems via value of information analysis
We develop computable metrics to assign priorities for information collection on binary systems composed of binary components. Components are worth inspecting because their condition states are uncertain, and system functioning depends on them. The Value of Information (VoI) enables assessment of the impact of information in decision making under uncertainty, including the component’s reliability and role in the system, the precision of the observation, the available maintenance actions and the expected economic loss. We introduce the VoI-based metrics for system-level (“global”) and component-level (“local”) maintenance actions, analyze the properties of these metrics, and apply them to series and parallel systems. We discuss their computational complexity in applications to general network systems and, to tame the complexity for the local metric assessment, we present a heuristic and assess its performance on some case studies.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1653716
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10284840
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Reliability engineering systems safety
- ISSN:
- 0951-8320
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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null (Ed.)Optimal exploration of engineering systems can be guided by the principle of Value of Information (VoI), which accounts for the topological important of components, their reliability and the management costs. For series systems, in most cases higher inspection priority should be given to unreliable components. For redundant systems such as parallel systems, analysis of one-shot decision problems shows that higher inspection priority should be given to more reliable components. This paper investigates the optimal exploration of redundant systems in long-term decision making with sequential inspection and repairing. When the expected, cumulated, discounted cost is considered, it may become more efficient to give higher inspection priority to less reliable components, in order to preserve system redundancy. To investigate this problem, we develop a Partially Observable Markov Decision Process (POMDP) framework for sequential inspection and maintenance of redundant systems, where the VoI analysis is embedded in the optimal selection of exploratory actions. We investigate the use of alternative approximate POMDP solvers for parallel and more general systems, compare their computation complexities and performance, and show how the inspection priorities depend on the economic discount factor, the degradation rate, the inspection precision, and the repair cost.more » « less
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Abstract The Internet of Everything (IoE), which aims to realize information exchange and communications for anything with the Internet, has revolutionized our modern world. Serving as the driving force for devices in the IoE network, power supply systems play a fundamental role in the development of the IoE. However, due to the complexity, multifunctionality and wide‐scale deployment of diverse applications, power supply systems face great challenges, including distribution, connection, charging technologies, and management. In this review, some challenges and advances in the development of both power supply systems and their units are presented. In the overall system‐level field, establishing sustainable and maintenance‐free power supply systems through wireless connections, efficient power management and integrated energy harvesting and storage systems is highlighted. Additionally, the main performance metrics of power supply units are discussed, including energy density, service life, and self‐power ability. In addition, some directions of power quality assessment for both the system and unit levels of power supply systems are presented, aiming to provide insight into the future development of high‐performance power supply systems for the IoE.
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The value of information (VoI) provides a rational metric to assess the impact of data in decision processes, including maintenance of engineering systems. According to the principle that “information never hurts”, VoI is guaranteed to be non-negative when a single agent aims at minimizing an expected cost. However, in other contexts such as non-cooperative games, where agents compete against each other, revealing a piece of information to all agents may have a negative impact to some of them, as the negative effect of the competitors being informed and adjusting their policies surpasses the direct VoI. Being aware of this, some agents prefer to avoid having certain information collected, when it must be shared with others, as the overall VoI is negative for them. A similar result may occur for managers of infrastructure assets following the prescriptions of codes and regulations. Modern codes require the probability of some failure events be below a threshold, so managers are forced to retrofit assets if that probability is too high. If the economic incentive of those agents disagrees with the code requirements, the VoI associated with tests or inspections may be negative. In this paper, we investigate under what circumstance this happens, and how severe the effects of this issue can be.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ress.2021.107944
