Estimation of Life-Time with Fuzzy Prior Information: Application in Reliability

Estimation of failure rate λ for highly reliable objects is considered. it is assumed that there exists prior information on possible values of λ and it is presented in a form of fuzzy sets. Bayesian estimators of λ with fuzzy prior information are given and compared with classical ML estimators. Simulation experiments show significant gains in the accuracy of estimation when the fuzzy prior knowledge is utilized for estimation.