Object-oriented systems engineering for networked infrastructure projects

Abstract

ABSTRACT Object-oriented systems engineering has been associated with software-intensive projects since the mid-2000s. However, the design of networked infrastructure projects that require multiple physical nodes, such as railway networks, also provide natural examples that benefit from an object-oriented design approach. Key object-oriented concepts such as abstraction, inheritance, encapsulation and component reuse provide an elegant way to analyse system behaviour whilst also managing the physical design at multiple infrastructure sites. In this paper a worked example of a transport infrastructure project that benefits from an object-oriented approach is developed. The paper illustrates the use of abstraction to establish a logical architecture and the use of inheritance to create a physical architecture that represents the nodes of the deployed system. Encapsulation is illustrated through the capacity to add local requirements, and the benefits of component reuse are demonstrated through the development of alternate architectures within the model.