Background

The goal of this Special Issue is to explore how the emerging area of operational reliability and performability can be used in electrical and electronic systems to improve the understanding and optimization of system performance. In recent years, the attention to in-service health and reliability monitoring of complex electronic systems has been motivated by the need to minimize the cost of total system failure and unscheduled maintenance. As part of this desire, the development of operational reliability and performability of electronic systems has become a useful method to monitor the system’s overall performance metric, including hardware and software.

Electrical and electronic systems are invariably subjected to the effects of the operational and physical environment in which they function. Depending on the dynamically varying operational scenario encountered, the processed signal may be subject to loss, noise, or interference, all of which may significantly degrade system performance. A proper understanding of a system’s susceptibility to deviate from its performance metrics under specific operational conditions is the key to maintaining its operational effectiveness.

The methodology for stating design specifications to assure reliable operation under realistically demanding conditions has generally proceeded on an ad hoc basis. Proposed component designs are usually considered to be reliable and hidden modes of failure are seldom investigated. Furthermore, there exists no generally accepted procedure for the prediction of failure modes where environmental factors are involved. While the fact that reliability varies with environmental factors is well known, this concept has rarely been studied beyond mere qualitative aspects. Limited quantitative experimental assessments for characterizing environmental effects on MTBF were presented, but these did not possess sufficient accuracy to allow injection of safety controls into the information-system design.

Functional relationships between reliability and the various environmental factors are needed, which include the assumption that the process under control is, indeed, a random variable. There is also the need to establish the necessary rules of system operation and to consider error density functions of systems as a function of the operating time. In some cases, the item state may be influenced by other factors such as variable mechanical stresses and variable energy consumption, in addition to a change in the operating conditions and the effect of the environment. Clearly, the reliability and remaining useful life of such equipment will change accordingly.

This Special Issue seeks research papers on current trends in operational reliability, in-service reliability, in-situ reliability, performability, and functionality of various types of electrical and electronic systems, including but not limited to computer, wireless, process control, and sensor systems. We also encourage the submission of papers addressing complex systems such as electrooptical, electromechanical, and electrochemical systems. Researchers from academic fields and governments and industries worldwide are encouraged to submit high quality, unpublished original research articles as well as review articles in broad areas relevant to Electrical, Electronic, and Related Systems.

Topics of Interest

This Special Issue encourages the submission of technical, experimental, methodological, and data analytical contributions focused on real-world problems and systems, as well as on general applications of reliability and performability studies on operation and failure mechanisms from individual components to subsystems to complex systems. Approaches for optimizing system performance under varying environmental conditions affecting system reliability are also encouraged. Papers on the following and related topics are sought:

Submission

We are soliciting original contributions that have not been published and are not currently under consideration elsewhere. Both theoretical studies and state-of-the-art practical applications are welcome. All submitted papers will be peer-reviewed and selected on the basis of their quality and relevance to the theme of this special section.

We also encourage extensions of conference papers, unless prohibited by copyright, if there is a significant difference in the technical content. Improvements such as adding a new case study or including a description of additional related studies do not satisfy this requirement. A description explaining the difference between the conference paper and the journal submission is required. The overlap between each submission and other articles, including the authors’ own papers and dissertations, should be less than 30%. Each submission must conform to the IJPE template. Please click here to submit your paper.

Special Attention

Important Dates

Guest Editors

About the Guest Editors

Professor Ram M. Narayanan received his Bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (Madras) in 1976 and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Massachusetts in 1988. From 1976 to 1983, he was a Research and Development Engineer with Bharat Electronics, Ltd., Ghaziabad, India, where he developed microwave communications equipment. In 1988, he joined the Electrical Engineering Department, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where he last served as the Blackman and Lederer Professor. Since 2003, he has served as a Professor of Electrical Engineering with The Pennsylvania State University and Director of the Center for Radar Engineering, Science, and Technology (CREST). His current research interests include passive radar, radar detection through barriers, harmonic and nonlinear radar, noise radar, cognitive radar, medical radar, quantum radar, radar networks, radar reliability, information extraction in radar, and compressive sensing. He is the recipient of the 2017 IEEE Warren White Award for Excellence in Radar Engineering. He is a Fellow of IEEE, SPIE, and IETE.

Professor Junhua Ding received his Bachelor’s in Computer Science from the China University of Geosciences (Wuhan) in 1994, Master’s in Computer Science from Nanjing University in 1997, and Ph.D. in Computer Science from Florida International University in 2004. He served as a Software Engineer at Beckman Coulter Inc., Miami, FL, from May 2000 to January 2006 where he performed software and algorithm development for flow cytometry, image-based cytometry and hematology systems. From January 2006 to August 2007, he served as a Senior Engineer for Johnson & Johnson, Rochester, NY where he was involved in project management, system development, and product support of immunohematology systems. From August 2007 until August 2018, he was a faculty member at East Carolina University. Since August 2018, he has served as Professor of Data Science in the Department of Information Science at the University of North Texas. His research interests include data analytics, computational law, biomedical computation, information security and privacy, and software engineering.