System of Systems

The Daniel Guggenheim School supports multiple projects and inquiries that employ a multidisciplinary system of systems (SoS) engineering approach. Our work seeks to interface autonomous constituent systems to provide capabilities beyond the reach of singular systems.

• The components of the SoS are systems in their own right and are developed, managed, and can be operated independently.
• Additionally, an SoS is always in flux while member systems are retired, modernized, and replaced throughout their life cycles.
• Therefore, SoS Engineering focuses on managing fuzzy system boundaries with an element autonomy resulting in emergent behaviors.
• To achieve coherence in heterogeneous systems developed for different stakeholders SoS engineers utilize simulation methods that focus on group composition, system behaviors, information/physical exchanges, and triggered events.
• SoS Engineering borrows methods from the systems engineering field but focuses on managing the looser coupling and cooperation between the constituent systems.