All speakers are listed in order of their intervention, from June 19 to June 22.
June 19, 2018
Judith Dahmann
Principal senior scientist in the MITRE Corporation Center for the MITRE Systems Enginering Technical Center and the Capability Action Team leader for Systems of Systems (SoS), USA.
Systems of Systems: Why Model Based Approaches to System of Systems Engineering?
Increasingly systems engineering is looking towards digitalization and model based approaches to address the challenges we face as our systems become more complex and we are seeking ways to improve the speed and accuracy of system development and delivery. Systems of systems (SoS) poses specific challenges based on the driving characteristics of systems of systems in today’s networked, interconnected world. The partnership between SoS engineering and model-based engineering enhances the value modeling brings by not only affording a rigorous approach to specifying complex SoS architectures and by providing a communications tool for integrating across the multiple domains often brought together in an SoS, but by also by providing a computational base for complex engineering analyses. This presentation looks at the challenges facing systems of systems engineering and how model based approaches are demonstrating their value in tackling to these challenges, highlighting the idea of heterogeneous toolchains, themselves SoS, as a promising strategy to enhance SoSE by bringing a heterogeneous set of analysis methods and tools coordinated with common data from the SoS architecture models to flexibly address SoSE challenges.
Robert Plana
Chief Technology Officer at Assystem, France. 
A new Systems engineering approach driven by data and requirements
The field of Energy and infrastructures is characterized by an increase of the complexity to take into account more numerous requirements from diverse origins (i.e new energy policies, climate change, population rise, pollution, augmented functionalities, risk mitigation…). Consequently, the progress of digital technologies (BIM, multi-physics simulation, virtual and augmented reality) is translating to an increase of the data available being both structured and/or unstructured. In this communication, we will overview how big data paradigm is modifying the way energy and infrastructures systems are designed, commissioned, exploited and dismantled. More precisely, it will be emphasized how digital continuity will be important to have a design phase more robust and to leverage all the data and knowledge developed during the design for the next life cycle steps of an infrastructure. Once the infrastructure is delivered, operations optimization is becoming crucial to minimize the costs through better availability and advanced predictive maintenance. It will be shown how systems engineering approach driven by data is an efficient way to minimize the loss of exploitation, risk of breakdown through digital twin concept and artificial intelligence technologies. The presentation will be supported by industrial use case in the field of nuclear, transportation, industry and life sciences where having a systems of systems approach coupled with big data capabilities is aiming to develop complex systems with less risk and with a higher efficiency and performance.
June 20, 2018
Jean-Luc Garnier
Systems Engineering and Architecting Director within the Thales Technical Directorate, France.
Investigating in SoS Taxonomies to Improve Systems Engineering.
This talk provides an overview of the development of the ISO/IEC/IEEE 21841 Systems and software engineering — Taxonomies of systems of systems. This Standard aims at reflecting the latest thoughts on the way to analysing systems of systems, with their characteristics, development strategies and in-services operations. Outline of this presentation is:
- Taxonomies for systems of systems,
- Examples covering the proposed taxonomies,
- Systems Engineering approaches covering the proposed taxonomies,
- Why the systems of Systems approaches should concern each Systems Engineer,
- Conclusion.
Alessandro Golkar
Vice President of Concurrent Engineering, Technology Planning and Roadmapping.
CTO at Airbus. France.
Unlocking value creation through Systems of Systems thinking: can we create new opportunities through platforms and services?
The aerospace industry is by and large a mature industry that came to the size and growth of what it is today by developing highly complex systems operating reliably in hard or extreme environments. Most of these developments focused on vertical development approaches carried out by traditional divisional organizations structured in aeronautical, space, and defense businesses. Those organizations focused at delivering their products to governments, and other customers able to afford the high development and recurring costs associated with aircraft and space systems. This landscape has been evolving exponentially over the last two decades. Two of the innovations that we observed in the marketplace are the rising importance of aerospace services, and the development efforts associated with those, as well as the decentralization of capital intensive asset utilization via Internet-enabled platforms. In this presentation I will present some ideas on how to use Systems of Systems thinking principles to unlock new opportunities for creating value by looking at the concepts of platforms and services in the context of present and future aerospace systems. Specifically, I will analyze how the interoperability of space and aeronautical assets through a decentralized sharing platform can allow the deployment of profitable aerospace services delivering benefits to both supplier and customer side of the market. I will discuss a concept of operations in the case of satellite federations sharing resources in opportunistic networks. I will review the advantages and limitations of such systems of systems approach, and identify some key enabling technologies needed to achieve this vision. Platforms and services conceived in this way can lower the barrier of access to aerospace to untapped portions of the market, paving the way for new business and the development of new on demand services that could potentially be launched by startup companies and large organizations in the sector.
Philippe Bonnifait
Director of Heudiasyc Lab., joint research unit formed by Université de technologie de Compiègne and CNRS, Compiègne, France.
Autonomous cars navigation: from standalone to cooperative systems.
The level of autonomy of driverless cars depends on the complexity of the navigation tasks and on the complexity of the environment, the ultimate goal being to ride on roads open to public traffic. For a long time, the main paradigm was to develop autonomous cars able to drive in a standalone mode by using information acquired by on-board sensors only. With the recent technological advances, some key functions rely on information coming from external sources that have to be fully mastered from a system point of view with measures of performance. The talk will first address this issue and will indicate the main drawbacks of such an approach. For some years now, cooperative systems are seen as a mean to improve the quality of the information needed by navigation systems. This can help to reduce the number and the cost of sensors embedded on cars. Several examples like lane changing on highways or roundabout crossing will be presented to illustrate this concept. This new cooperative paradigm raises many new questions, like the integrity of the information when there exists exchange cycles between the agents that are cooperating. Some cooperative localization problems studied at the Heudiasyc Lab will be outlined. Solutions currently under study will be presented with experimental results.
June 21, 2018
James M. Tien
College of Engineering, University of Miami, USA.
Internet of Things, Real-Time Decision Making and Artificial Intelligence.
In several earlier papers, the author defined and detailed the concept of a servgood, which can be thought of as a physical good or product enveloped by a services-oriented layer that makes the good smarter or more adaptable and customizable for a particular use. Adding another layer of physical sensors could then enhance its smartness and intelligence, especially if it were to be connected with other servgoods – thus, constituting an Internet of Things (IoT) or servgoods. More importantly, real-time decision making (RTDM) is central to the Internet of Things; it is about decision informatics and embraces the advanced technologies of sensing (i.e., Big Data), processing (i.e., real-time analytics), reacting (i.e., real-time decision-making), and learning (i.e., deep learning). Indeed, RTDM is becoming an integral aspect of IoT and artificial intelligence (AI), including its improving abilities at voice and video recognition, speech and predictive synthesis, and language and social-media understanding. These three key and mutually supportive technologies – IoT, RTDM, and AI – are considered herein, including their progress to date.
Philippe Convain
Digital Manufacturing Director, Plastic Omnium Auto Inergy, France.
Industrial Process Monitoring: from fault analysis to prediction.
Since more than 10 years Plastic Omnium Auto Inergy Division is collecting a lot of process data. It gives us the possibility to automatically control that the parts are produced within the tolerances and also to fill the traceability data base.
To move to the next step which is the creation of model for prediction, we are forced to break the “data silos” and integrate different systems like PES (plant execution system), Quality Data Acquisition System, and Process Data Acquisition System. To be able to predict a rejected part or a downtime, and correct the process before it appears, we need to catch all the events of the shop floor to sort stable mode from transitional modes for applying adequate models.
Atta Badii
University of Reading, UK. School of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences.
Sensible (semi)autonomous and pro-active interaction of an assistive robot with its environment has to rely on self-awareness of emerging situations as a vital capability of such a cognitive system. In this keynote we examine the essential system-of-systems components for cooperation support in human-robot co-working or cooperative/empathic dialogue in companion/care robotics.
We identify the fundamental capabilities underpinning the above essential properties of a robotic co-worker/companion which are safety monitoring and control, and, seamless and coherent initiative- taking including emergency safety control, and, timely spoken/textual/physical interventions to support shared human-robot goals.
We explore the requisite functional and interactive layers of such a system and present a framework architecture for situation assessment and control. This notably includes a Human Sensory System, a Situation Assessment Blackboard, an FPGA-enabled Real-time Safety Controller and an Analytics Framework. We present some results and observations as collected from validation of the proposed framework architecture in two Demonstrator domains with a focus on Human Gait Rehabilitation, and, Companion Robotics.
Kerry Lunney
INCOSE President-Elect, Australia.
Thales Australia Engineering Director / Chief Engineer.
Is Systems Engineering Ready for the Future?
Massive digitisation, the blending of physical, societal and cyber, advanced robotics, artificial intelligence and deep learning, autonomous systems – these are all examples of complex systems as we embrace the future. But why is this systems challenge so daunting to some engineers? Complex systems have always been with us throughout time.
In engineering systems we have built solutions on a foundation of tools, applications and processes, coupled with creativity, to tackle large, complex systems. Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) and Digital Transformation have come to the forefront to aid us in tackling the complex systems challenge, in particular the increasing trend for interoperability across disparate systems to develop a larger single system. What more can we do?
The possibilities of evolving Systems Engineering will be presented. Systems Engineering is one of, if not the highest, in applying creativity to problem solving, compared to other engineering fields. As such the application of problem boundary techniques, transformation techniques, and representation and modelling, will be analysed for the adaptability and adoption for future complex systems development.
Similarly, the criticality for achieving interoperability will be presented. This includes both hard and soft aspects of the problem space. Differences between disparate systems operating as a single system entity versus planned like-systems may provide another viewpoint for consideration for engineering systems.
In presenting the future challenges in Systems Engineering, real life examples will be used to illustrate both success and failure in the real world.
June 22, 2018
François James
French National Research Agency – ANR. France.
Lab. Heudiasyc, Université de technologie de Compiègne, CNRS, Association Sorbonne Université.
Laboratory of Excellence – Labex MS2T: Control of Technological Systems-of-Systems.
Institute of Intelligent Systems and Robotics – ISIR, Sorbonne Université, Paris, France.
André Ayoun
AFIS – Association Française d’Ingénierie Système. Ariane Group. France.
Expert in Systems of Systems, Groupe Renault. France.
Renault is obviously willing to take part in the new integrated mobility solutions. However, the conventional know-how of a car manufacturer may not be enough to face the related challenges. To share car rides, to develop car-as-a-service solutions, to coordinate with other mobility services and with smart infrastructures on behalf of social interests, all these challenges require to address service systems, systems of systems and cyberphysical systems. Renault got some insights into each of these domains especially owing to the experience gained in the electric vehicle business. Starting from these assets, Renault strives to accelerate its learning curve on these new challenges.
Programme Officer at European Commission – Unit A2 – DG Connect.
AVL List, Austria. Vice president of ARTEMIS-IA.
Thales R&T, France. EU Platforms4CPS coordinator.
Europe is a world leader in the area of time-critical and safety-critical systems and to maintain this position there is a need to be able to design, develop and deploy highly distributed and connected digital technologies. Platforms4CPS aims to ‘create the vision, strategy, technology building blocks and supporting ecosystem for future CPS applications’ with three key objectives to:
· Create a vision and strategy for future European CPS by analysing the ecosystem and market perspective and strategically updating and validating existing CPS roadmaps across multiple domains;
· Promote platform building, bringing together industry and academic experts and create a repository of CPS technology building blocks;
· Build an ecosystem by creating a constituency and through cooperating with ECSEL, ITEA, and ARTEMIS projects on the foundations of CPS engineering, and consensus-building on societal and legal issues related to the deployment of CPS.
In this talk Dr Robinson will present particular focal points of the project, including highlights that have emerged through studies of the CPS market and engagement with the CPS community.