Mathematical modelling of mission-abort policies: a review.

This article systematically reviews the mathematical modelling of mission-abort policies (MAPs), which address decision-making for aborting missions to balance the conflicting objectives of mission success and system survival. MAPs have been primarily studied in engineering contexts—especially unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)—with models typically focusing on single-system, single-target missions where degradation is driven by shocks or wear, and abort decisions depend on probabilistic trade-offs between mission success probability and system survival probability. The review identifies gaps including limited modelling of multiple systems with multitasking or common-cause failures, scarce applications outside engineering (notably in health management), and a lack of practical implementation or software demonstrators. Future research opportunities include expanding MAP models to multi-system and multi-stage missions, incorporating uncertainty in system resilience, developing decision-support tools, and exploring applications in transportation, logistics, and medical treatments.