Towards an UML-based SoS Analysis and Design Process

Abstract

Systems of Systems or SoSs are an emerging class of systems built from large-scale constituent systems, that are often heterogeneous, with independent management, goals and resources. The heterogeneity and managerial independence of the constituent systems is both a strength and a drawback of SoS engineering. Although, the individual systems of an SoS may operate autonomously, their interactions present and usually provide important emerging properties that are constantly evolving. Therefore, coordination and interaction within the SoS constituent systems gives rise to an emerging behavior which defines the SoS overall goal. However, this may lead to unpredictable behavior (arrival/departure, failure to fulfill commitments) of the SoS constituent systems. As a result, a well-defined process for SoS engineering; where missions, capabilities and mainly the expected interactions of the constituent systems are well-established, is missing. Our objective in the present work is to propose an UML-based SoS analysis and design process (USDP). The process is iterative and incremental and will be instrumented and documented with various diagrams to ensure clarity and understandability of the USDP artifacts. Besides, a meta-model for SoS modelling will be defined, it mainly defines the SoS structure in terms of constituent systems, theirs missions, capabilities, and interactions. With the aim of reducing the abstraction of interactions and in order to ensure a high interoperability, a precise and coherent definition of the interactions among the heterogenous constituent systems of an SoS is given to make the description of the SoS more truthful. From a practical point of view, we develop a graphical editor for modeling an SoS, based on the strengths of the MDE approach.