Imprecise Reliability: An introductory review

The main aim of the paper is to define what the imprecise reliability is, what problems can be solved by means of a framework of the imprecise reliability. From this point of view, various branches of reliability analysis are considered, including analysis of monotone systems, repairable sys-tems, multi-state systems, structural reliability, software reliability, hu-man reliability, fault tree analysis. Various types of initial information used in the imprecise reliability are overviewed. Some open problems are given in conclusion. 1 Why imprecise probabilities in reliability analysis A lot of methods and models of the classical reliability theory assume that all probabilities are precise, that is, that every probability involved is perfectly determinable. Moreover, it is usually assumed that there exists some complete probabilistic information about the system and component reliability behavior