This thesis develops a more realistic and applicable new set covering model that is adjusted and supplied by the existing set covering models, and induces an algorithm for solving the new set covering model, and applies the new model and the algorithm to an actual set covering problems. The new set covering model introduces a probabilistic covering aistance ($0{eqslantless}p{eqslantless}1$)or time($0{eqslantless}p{eqslantless}1$) instead of a deterministic covering distance(0 or 1) or time (0 or 1) of the existing set covering model. The existing set covering model has not considered the merit of the overcover of customers. But this new set covering model leads a concept of this overcover to a concept of the parallel system reliability. The algorithm has been programmed on the UNIVAC 9030 for solving large-scale covering problems. An application of the new set covering model is presented in order to determine the locations of the air surveillance radars as a set covering problem for a case-study.