An implementers' view of systems engineering for systems of systems

This paper builds on and extends U.S. Department of Defense published guidance on systems engineering (SE) of systems of systems (SoS) by developing and presenting a view of SoS SE that translates the SoS SE core elements, their interrelationships, and SoS decision-making artifacts and information from a “trapeze” model to a more familiar and intuitive time-sequenced “wave” model representation. The information is thus rendered in a form more readily usable by SoS SE practitioners in the field and one that corresponds with incremental development approaches that are the norm for SoS capability evolution. The paper describes and motivates the development of the wave model, discusses its key characteristics, and provides examples of SoS efforts that reflect this view of SoS SE. Finally, the paper describes how the information critical to successful SoS SE is created, where it fits into the wave model, how it evolves over time, and in which artifacts the information is normally contained.