System of Systems (SoS) project and optimization in a Network Centric Operations (NCO) environment

Strong operative integration among cooperating systems lead to the concept of System of Systems (SoS). Only if systems of SoS work in a synchronized way, it is possible to assure SoS requirements satisfaction. The goal of this paper is to present a performed work consisted of finding a solution for the problem of designing a System of Systems (SoS) in a Network Centric Operation (NCO) environment. An hard engineering challenge is to find a process able to correctly allocate SoS requirements to its systems. Nowadays commonly used design methods allow to allocate system requirements to its sub-systems. This approach is not correct in a SoS point of view because systems of a SoS are geographically and operatively independent, so the key of such a design-process is communication among systems. The considered SoS has been an airborne surveillance system composed of the following weapon systems: Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C), Maritime Patrol Aircraft (MPA), Airborne Ground Surveillance (AGS) and Signal Intelligence (SIGINT). Both manned and unmanned aircraft have been considered as aircraft systems of surveillance SoS. In a first project phase security requirements of the Italian nation have been analyzed so that it has been possible to establish plausible SoS requirements. These requirements have been allocated to the aircraft systems composing surveillance SoS. In a second phase it has been possible to obtain a preliminary design of aircraft-systems. A model based on House of Quality optimization technique has been studied in order to identify the optimum set of aircraft design variables compliant with imposed SoS requirements. The model has been implemented on a software tool written by using Matlab® programming language. The use of Matlab® algorithm for aircraft preliminary design reveals that results for aircraft design parameters are so near to the existing aircraft trends when these aircraft are designed with “NCO compatibility” as MALE (Medium Altitude Long Endurance) and HALE (High Altitude Long Endurance) UAS (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles). In AEW&C and MPA missions, where manned aircraft have been supposed to operate, aircraft design parameters are far from existing aircraft trends because these aircraft are not designed with NCO capabilities. In these cases a great NCO impact on aircraft preliminary design has been evaluated.