The integration of complex systems is an important aspect of systems engineering. This paper defines six integration principles to consider when planning and executing system development and integration processes. This paper describes these integration principles and validates them through a historical system survey. The 14 systems studied represent both integration successes and integration failures to show the universal applicability of the principles. The historical system analysis supported the validity of four of the six principles. The validity of one of the remaining principles could not be concluded through the evidence gathered. The validity of the final principle was inconclusive due to a lack of evidence found. Understanding these principles and how to apply them to an integration program will increase the probability of successful integration of future systems.
Component and subsystem reuse has been an important tool in controlling the cost and schedule requirements of developing new aerospace systems. Although the mere utilization of component reuse cannot be shown to influence system integration success significantly, previous research has shown that interactions between reuse and other integration principles do significantly influence integration success. The research described in this paper leverages historical system data to characterize these interactions and assess the influence of these interactions on integration success. This research identifies four characterizations of interactions between reuse and the other principles that significantly influence system integration success when component reuse is included in the system design.
This paper describes the implementation of the Goal Function Tree (GFT) for an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) in a Systems Modeling Language (SysML) environment which tracks nominal and off nominal goals for a successful flight of a UAV. The utility of the GFT enables the traceability of the system's goals and requirements to perform a successful mission scenario. Definition of nominal goals reduces ambiguity about mission success and can be followed more easily by the customer. Furthermore, the Goal Function Tree can also track and implement corrections if the measurements for success are deviating through the use of off nominal functions. The GFT's off nominal functions create a new set of functions and goals that attempt to mitigate a failing attribute instead of the other methods that only defined failure. This methodology creates a set of procedures for an operator or system when action is needed, thereby identifying more robust requirements as compared to traditional requirements development based only on nominal mission scenarios. The advantage of the SysML environment enables the legible traceability of the overlapping of goals of various structural and behavioral system objects, the execution of functions, and implementation of stereotypes which classifies the interactions between objects.
The application of commonality in a system represents an attempt to reduce costs by reducing the number of unique components. A formal method for conducting commonality analysis has not been established. This paper characterizes commonality analysis as a partitioning problem for which the solution may be approximated by the application of clustering methods. A clustering algorithm is developed and applied to a commonality analysis of Space Station water tanks. The success in applying a clustering method in this problem indicates a significant potential for application of clustering methods to commonality analysis.
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