Introduction to system of systems

Recently, there has been a growing interest in a class of complex systems whose constituents are themselves complex. Performance optimization, robustness, and reliability among an emerging group of heterogeneous systems in order to realize a common goal has become the focus of various applications including military, security, aerospace, space, manufacturing, service industry, environmental systems, and disaster management, to name a few [Crossley, 2006; Lopez, 2006; Wojcik and Hoffman, 2006]. There is an increasing interest in achieving synergy between these independent systems to achieve the desired overall system performance [Azarnoosh et al. 2006]. In the literature, researchers have addressed the issue of coordination and interoperability in a system of systems (SoS) [Abel and Sukkarieh, 2006; DiMario, 2006]. SoS technology is believed to more effectively implement and analyze large, complex, independent, and heterogeneous systems working (or made to work) cooperatively [Abel and Sukkarieh, 2006]. The main thrust behind the desire to view the systems as an SoS is to obtain higher capabilities and performance than would be possible with a traditional system view. The SoS concept presents a high-level viewpoint and explains the interactions between each of the independent systems. However, the SoS concept is still at its developing stages [Meilich, 2006; Abbott, 2006].