Applications of the Cross-Entropy Method in Reliability

Abstract

Telecommunication networks, oil platforms, chemical plants and airplanes consist of a great number of subsystems and components that are all subject to failure. Reliability theory studies the failure behavior of such systems in relation to the failure behavior of their components, which is often easier to analyze. However, even for the most basic reliability models, the overall reliability of the system can be difficult to compute. In this chapter we give an introduction to modern Monte Carlo methods for fast and accurate reliability estimation. We focus in particular on Monte Carlo techniques for network reliability estimation, and network design.