Keynote

Maintainability Analysis of UAV Systems: an Analytical

Prof. Dharmaraja Selvamuthu(India)

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are widely used in military, surveillance, agricultural, and commercial applications, where reliable operation and timely maintenance are essential for mission success. The increasing complexity of UAV systems makes it necessary to adopt effective maintenance strategies that can reduce failures, improve system availability, and lower operational costs. This research presents an analytical approach for the maintainability analysis of UAV systems by integrating reliability, availability, and maintenance concepts into a unified framework. The study examines the effects of component degradation and failure in critical UAV subsystems such as batteries, motors, sensors, and communication units. A Continuous-Time Markov Chain (CTMC) model is used to represent different operating and maintenance states of the system, including normal operation, degraded operation, preventive maintenance, repair and failure conditions. In addition, condition-monitoring and health-assessment concepts are considered to support early fault detection and degradation tracking, enabling more effective maintenance planning. The proposed framework evaluates key performance measures such as reliability, maintainability, availability, mission readiness, and maintenance cost under different maintenance policies. By analyzing preventive and predictive maintenance strategies, the study identifies maintenance schedules that enhance system performance while minimizing downtime and operational expenses. The results demonstrate that combining analytical modeling with health-based maintenance approaches can significantly improve UAV operational efficiency, extend component life, and increase mission success. The proposed methodology provides a practical decision-support tool for UAV operators and maintenance planners seeking to improve the long-term performance and sustainability of UAV systems.

About the speaker

Prof. Dharmaraja Selvamuthu

India

Indian Institute of Technology,
Department of Mathematics
Professor

S. Dharmaraja has been with the Department of Mathematics, IIT Delhi, since 2003, where he is currently a Professor, Department of Mathematics and joint faculty of Bharti School of Telecommunication Technology and Management from June 2013. He is a 'Professor (HAG)' from Oct. 2020 and he appointed as 'Institute Chair Professor' from July 2019 to June 2024. During Sept. 2020 and Aug. 2022, July 2014 and August 2017, he served as Head, Department of Mathematics. He appointed as 'Jaswinder & Tarvinder Chadha Chair Professor' for teaching and research in the area of Operations Research from May 2010 to July 2015. He has held visiting positions at the New York University, USA, Duke University, USA, Emory University, USA, University of Calgary, Canada, University of Los Andes, Bogota, Colombia, National University of Colombia, Bogota, Colombia, University of Verona, Verona, Italy, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, Korea, Universita degli Studi di Salerno, Fisciano, Italy and University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.

His research interests include applied probability, queueing theory, stochastic modeling, performance analysis of computer and communication systems and financial mathematics. He has published over 105 papers in refereed international journals and over 45 papers in refereed international conferences in these areas. His work has garnered more than 2500 citations, reflecting a significant impact in the field, with an H-index of 26. He has supervised 42 M.Tech/Int. M.Tech and 13 Ph.D. research scholars. He is an Associate Editor of International Journal of Communication Systems (published by Wiley) and an Associate Editor of Opsearch (published by Springer). Recently, he is the author of a text book entitled "Introduction to Stochastic Processes: Queues, Finance, and Credit Risk" in Springer, July 2025. He is co-author of a text book entitled "Introduction to Probability and Stochastic Processes with Applications" in John Wiley (US Edition, New Jersey, June 2012) and (Asian Edition, New Delhi, Jan. 2016), co-author of a text book entitled "Financial Mathematics: An Introduction" in Narosa, Nov. 2012 and co-author of a text book entitled "Introduction to Statistical Methods, Design of Experiments and Statistical Quality Control" in Springer (Asian Edition, Sept. 2018). Recently, he is co-author of a monograph book entitled "Reliability Assessment of Tethered High-altitude Unmanned Telecommunication Platforms: k-out-of-n Reliability Models and Applications" in Springer Verlag (Singapore, 1st edition, March 2024) and co-author of a text book entitled "Introduction to Probability, Statistical Methods, Design of Experiments and Statistical Quality Control" in Springer (Second Edition, April 2024).