Weighted Voting System With Unreliable Links

In a weighted voting system (WVS), outputs of voting units are sometimes not properly transferred to a sink unit because of the unreliability of links between the voting units and the sink unit. In this study, a WVS model with unreliable links is established, and two different kinds of unreliable links are introduced. Type I links have two states, which are connection and disconnection, and type II links have one more state (error state) than type I links. An approach based on a universal generating function method is suggested for evaluating a WVS with unreliable links. Two definitions of sensitivity are presented, which reflect the effect of a link's reliability or a system parameter on system reliability. Reliability evaluation and sensitivity analysis are demonstrated by some examples, and a conclusion is given.