Demonstration of System of Systems Multi-Attribute Tradespace Exploration on a Multi-Concept Surveillance Architecture

One of the primary challenges for decision makers during concept exploration in engineering system design is selecting designs that are valuable throughout the operational lifetime of the system. The problem is even more difficult when designing Systems of Systems (SoS), which are dynamic, complex, higher-order systems that may be composed of both legacy and new component systems. There are several heuristics and qualitative guidelines for designing SoS in the literature, but there is a lack of practical quantitative methods for SoS concept exploration. Development of quantitative methods for SoS conceptual design will greatly improve the ability of decision makers to select SoS designs that will be value robust over time. These quantitative methods will allow decision makers to consider a larger and more complete set of alternative SoS designs than is possible with qualitative methods alone. A SoS tradespace exploration method is being developed by augmenting the existing Dynamic Multi-Attribute Tradespace Exploration method with SoS-specific considerations, such as the existence of a multi-level stakeholder value function, the incorporation of both legacy and new component systems, and the potential time-varying composition of the SoS. In this paper, a case study of an operationally responsive multi-concept surveillance system for disaster relief is used to illustrate this developing SoS tradespace exploration method. This case study was partially completed as a collaborative project between MIT and the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, and later extended by MIT. Several surveillance concepts satellite, aircraft, unmanned air vehicle, and sensor swarms were considered as possible concept solutions to achieve the surveillance mission objectives. The above system concepts are compared on the same tradespace, demonstrating the ability of the proposed method to allow decision makers to quantitatively compare disparate single system concepts on a common performance and cost basis. Following analysis of the different single system concepts, multi-concept SoS designs composed of heterogeneous components were modeled and then compared with the single system concepts on a common tradespace. This disaster surveillance system case study demonstrates the ability of the SoS tradespace exploration method to enable the quantitative comparison of the relative performance of alternative SoS designs, and thereby contributes to an improved SoS concept design and selection method.