Architecting Principles for Systems‐of‐Systems

While there is growing recognition of the importance of “Systems‐of‐systems,” there is little agreement on just what they are or on by what principles they should be constructed. This paper proposes a taxonomy of these super‐systems and exhibits a basic set of architecting principles to assist in their design. While several heuristics are particularly applicable to systems‐of‐systems, the key insight is the central role played by communication standards. The enabling architecture of systems‐of‐systems is non‐physical, it is set of standards that allow meaningful communication among the components. This is illustrated through existing and proposed systems.