Tool suite to support model based systems engineering-enabled system-of-systems analysis

The complexity of aerospace systems requirements, analysis, design, and architecture puts these systems among those that can benefit the most from a Model-Based Systems Engineering approach. However, though there has been progress in connecting domain-based model specifications and simulation experiments, there is still a gap between Model-Based Systems Engineering and the implementation and use of tools and metrics for modeling and analysis of complex aerospace systems. Here, we build upon our prior System-of-System research to illustrate how a System-of-Systems Analytic Work Bench can be used in combination with Model-Based Systems Engineering to enhance the analysis and design of systems architectures. The Analytic Work Bench is a suite of tools for analysis of the behavior of complex systems and for comparison and evaluation of systems architectures. The tools in the Analytic Work Bench adopt a representation of Systems-of-Systems architecture as a network of interdependent systems, which lends itself to connection with various Model-Based Systems Engineering representations, for example, Functional Block Diagrams and SysML activity and parametric diagrams. For each method in the Analytic Work Bench we illustrate appropriate linking to Model-Based Systems Engineering representations, explaining how the methods can acquire part of the required information for their models from traditional Model-Based Systems Engineering methodology. We then show how results from the tools in the Analytic Work Bench enhance Model-Based Systems Engineering with quantitative analysis of complex systems and architectures, including evaluation of performance, criticalities, robustness, resilience, and evolution of the systems at various levels of abstraction.