IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/reensy/v262y2025ics0951832025003874.html

An optimal self-healing policy with discrete resources

Author

Listed:
  • Zheng, Rui
  • Shen, Jingyuan

Abstract

Intelligent systems capable of detecting and repairing damage autonomously hold significant promise across various domains, such as space exploration, autonomous vehicles, and robotics. Integrating self-healing mechanisms is pivotal in enhancing these systems’ durability, reliability, and efficiency. This paper introduces a novel self-healing policy with discrete self-healing resources. Self-inspections at equidistant time epochs reveal the deterioration of the system. Various actions, including doing nothing, self-healing, and stopping, can be selected after inspection. A self-healing action reduces deterioration to a random lower level, with the degree of reduction depending on the amount of healing resources used. Therefore, it is crucial to determine the optimal number of healing resources to allocate during self-healing. The goal is to identify the policy that minimizes the expected average cost. This optimization problem is formulated within the semi-Markov decision process framework. The structural properties of the optimal policy are examined. A policy iteration algorithm is developed based on a discretization approach. A numerical example is used to show how to apply the proposed approach, and the obtained policy provides valuable insights to support the operation of intelligent systems.

Suggested Citation

  • Zheng, Rui & Shen, Jingyuan, 2025. "An optimal self-healing policy with discrete resources," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 262(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:reensy:v:262:y:2025:i:c:s0951832025003874
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ress.2025.111186
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0951832025003874
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ress.2025.111186?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nooshin Salari & Viliam Makis, 2020. "Application of Markov renewal theory and semi‐Markov decision processes in maintenance modeling and optimization of multi‐unit systems," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 67(7), pages 548-558, October.
    2. Dui, Hongyan & Wang, Jiafeng & Zhu, Tianmeng & Xing, Liudong, 2024. "Maintenance optimization methodology of edge cloud collaborative systems based on a gateway cost index in IIoT," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 251(C).
    3. Tingting Huang & Yuepu Zhao & David W. Coit & Loon-Ching Tang, 2021. "Reliability assessment and lifetime prediction of degradation processes considering recoverable shock damages," IISE Transactions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(5), pages 614-628, May.
    4. Chengjie Wang & Jian Liu & Qingyu Yang & Qingpei Hu & Dan Yu, 2023. "Recoverability effects on reliability assessment for accelerated degradation testing," IISE Transactions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 55(7), pages 698-710, July.
    5. Dong, Wenjie & Liu, Sifeng & Bae, Suk Joo & Cao, Yingsai, 2021. "Reliability modelling for multi-component systems subject to stochastic deterioration and generalized cumulative shock damages," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 205(C).
    6. David T. Abdul‐Malak & Jeffrey P. Kharoufeh & Lisa M. Maillart, 2019. "Maintaining systems with heterogeneous spare parts," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 66(6), pages 485-501, September.
    7. Yu Liu & Jian Gao & Tao Jiang & Zhiguo Zeng, 2023. "Selective maintenance and inspection optimization for partially observable systems: An interactively sequential decision framework," IISE Transactions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 55(5), pages 463-479, May.
    8. Zhao, Xian & Guo, Xiaoxin & Wang, Xiaoyue, 2018. "Reliability and maintenance policies for a two-stage shock model with self-healing mechanism," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 185-194.
    9. Zhao, Xiujie & Liu, Bin & Xu, Jianyu & Wang, Xiao-Lin, 2023. "Imperfect maintenance policies for warranted products under stochastic performance degradation," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 308(1), pages 150-165.
    10. Shen, Jingyuan & Cong, Shangshang & Zhang, Nan & Ma, Yizhong, 2023. "Reliability modelling and self-healing policy design for systems with limited resources," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 240(C).
    11. Zheng, Rui & Wang, Jingjing & Zhang, Yingzhi, 2023. "A hybrid repair-replacement policy in the proportional hazards model," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 304(3), pages 1011-1021.
    12. Dui, Hongyan & Wang, Xinyue & Dong, Xinghui & Zhu, Tianmeng & Zhai, Yunkai, 2024. "Reliability model and emergency maintenance strategies for smart home systems," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 251(C).
    13. Qiu, Qingan & Cui, Lirong & Wu, Bei, 2020. "Dynamic mission abort policy for systems operating in a controllable environment with self-healing mechanism," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 203(C).
    14. van Noortwijk, J.M., 2009. "A survey of the application of gamma processes in maintenance," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 94(1), pages 2-21.
    15. Dui, Hongyan & Liu, Meng & Song, Jiaying & Wu, Shaomin, 2023. "Importance measure-based resilience management: Review, methodology and perspectives on maintenance," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 237(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Wang, Xiaoyue & Wang, Linlin & Chen, Xi & Ning, Ru & Zhou, Jian, 2026. "Joint optimization of protection adjustment and preventive maintenance policies for multi-state self-healing systems with protective devices in a shock environment," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 269(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Qiao, Peirui & Ma, Yizhong & Luo, Ming & Shen, Jingyuan & Zhou, Hanting, 2024. "Reliability modeling and warranty optimization for products with self-healing under a dynamic shock environment," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 249(C).
    2. Yuan, Yifan & Shen, Xiaohong & Sun, Lin & Yan, Yongsheng & Wang, Haiyan, 2025. "Critical node identification of dynamic-load wireless sensor networks for cascading failure protection," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 264(PA).
    3. Wu, Bei & Zhang, Yamei & Zhao, Songzheng, 2023. "Modeling coupled effects of dynamic environments and zoned shocks on systems under dependent failure processes," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 231(C).
    4. Jiang, Shan & Jia, Xujie, 2024. "Reliability assessment under continuous fatigue degradation and shock based on Markov renewal process," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 248(C).
    5. Zhao, Xian & Liu, Zhenru & Wu, Congshan & Jin, Tongtong, 2025. "Joint optimization of maintenance and speed selection for transportation systems," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 257(PB).
    6. Wang, Xiaoyue & Chen, Xi & Zhao, Xian & Ning, Ru, 2024. "Reliability analysis of self-healing systems equipped with multi-component protective devices operating in a shock environment," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 244(C).
    7. Kang, Fengming & Cui, Lirong & Ye, Zhisheng & Zhou, Yu, 2024. "Reliability analysis for systems with self-healing mechanism in degradation-shock dependence processes with changing degradation rate," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 241(C).
    8. Zhang, Chengjie & Fang, Zhigeng & Dong, Wenjie, 2025. "Preventive maintenance strategy for multi-component systems in dynamic risk assessment," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 254(PA).
    9. Zhao, Xian & Li, Ziyue & Wang, Xiaoyue & Qi, Xin, 2025. "Reliability and mission abort strategy for a multi-state k-out-of-n: F system in a dynamically changing shock environment," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 264(PB).
    10. Zhao, Xian & Lv, Zuheng & Qiu, Qingan & Wu, Yaguang, 2025. "Optimal mission abort and selective replacement policies for multi-state systems," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 264(PA).
    11. Qin, Xiangyu & Che, Ada & Wu, Bei, 2024. "Modeling coupling impacts of self-healing mechanisms and dynamic environments on systems subject to dependent failure processes," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 250(C).
    12. Jing, Yongfeng & Yang, Xin & Yang, Yong & Jiao, Jian & Yuan, Yuan & Lu, Chen & Dui, Hongyan, 2026. "Reliability evaluation and multi-stage performance analysis of multi-state air-ground cooperative networks for city aviation and railway infrastructure," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 265(PA).
    13. Zhou, Min & Zhao, Xiujie & He, Zhen & Kim, Kwang-Jae, 2025. "An integrated maintenance-upgrade policy for stochastically degrading products," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 261(C).
    14. Wei, Xiaohua & Bai, Sijun & Wu, Bei, 2023. "A novel shock-dependent preventive maintenance policy for degraded systems subject to dynamic environments and N-critical shocks," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 239(C).
    15. Zhang, Yamei & Zhao, Songzheng & Wu, Bei, 2025. "Reliability and maintenance analysis of two-component system subject to zoned shocks and degradation processes," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 257(PA).
    16. Liu, Lujie & Yang, Jun & Yan, Bingxin, 2024. "A dynamic mission abort policy for transportation systems with stochastic dependence by deep reinforcement learning," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 241(C).
    17. Finkelstein, Maxim & Cha, Ji Hwan, 2025. "Is our mission profitable: The cost-effectiveness curve with a possibility of a mission abort," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 257(PA).
    18. Wu, Congshan & Zhao, Xian & Qiu, Qingan & Sun, Jinglei, 2021. "Optimal mission abort policy for k-out-of-n: F balanced systems," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).
    19. Zhao, Xian & Lv, Zuheng & Qiu, Qingan & Wu, Yaguang, 2023. "Designing two-level rescue depot location and dynamic rescue policies for unmanned vehicles," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 233(C).
    20. Aven, Terje & Rios Insua, David & Soyer, Refik & Zhu, Xiaoyan & Zio, Enrico, 2025. "Fifty years of reliability in operations research," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 324(2), pages 361-381.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:reensy:v:262:y:2025:i:c:s0951832025003874. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/reliability-engineering-and-system-safety .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.