The defense and security applications of systems engineering special session will address defense and security challenges related to systems engineering modeling and simulation and experimental tests. 

Among the topics of interests:

• System analysis and studies
• Simulation as a Service
• Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) / Digital Engineering Applications
• Systems concepts and integration
• Applied vehicle technology
• Modelling and simulation
• Operations Research and Analysis
• Operations Decision Support
• Wargaming and AI-enabled MDO wargame
• Interoperability
• Digital Twins for defense – Digital engineering
• Uncrewed & Autonomous Systems — Trends & Challenges
• State of the Art in AI Applied to Military Training and Education
• Goal-Driven, Multi-Fidelity Approaches for Military Vehicle System-Level Design
• Distributed Interactive Simulation
• High Level Architecture for M&S (HLA)
• NATO M&S Development and opportunities
• Mission driven SoS Engineering
• AI in critical systems
• Combat systems, advance air defense
• Land forces

Special Session Leader: Omar Hammami 

Prof. Omar Hammami holds a Phd in computer science from Toulouse University and a HDR in Physics from University Paris-Saclay. He is an expert in the fields of System engineering (MBSE/SoSe), Modeling and simulation, Multi-disciplinary Analysis and Optimization (MDAO) and Defense simulation. He has been involved in numerous cooperative R&D projects in these fields with the industry. He is a Professor at ENSTA PARIS since 2000 and responsible for the field of system engineering and from 1993 to 2000 Associate Professor and Head of the Performance Evaluation laboratory in Japan. Omar Hammami is a co-president of the Hub AE&C of the cluster of competitiveness Systematic, the Paris Region Deep Tech Ecosystem and vice-President of AFIS French INCOSE Chapter. He is involved in several NATO working groups among them Digital Twin and Quantifying Defense Capabilities using Data Analytics and Mathematical Modelling. He is a consultant and international expert for various international bodies and organizations in the field of System engineering, HPC and Quantum Computing.

Contact Omar HAMMAMI ENSTA Paris | Institut Polytechnique de Paris 828 boulevard des Maréchaux 91120 Palaiseau France omar.hammami@polytechnique.edu

System of Systems Engineering in Robotics: Foundations for Sustainable and Adaptive Autonomous Systems

The systems of systems community and the robotics community evolve in parallel, although they share a large number of common concepts and related issues. The strong emergence of autonomous robotics swarms, in particular heterogeneous multi-domains autonomous robotics swarms (aerial, terrestrial, maritime) is both an opportunity for roboticists to appropriate the concepts of systems of systems engineering, and an opportunity to challenge the commonly established results of systems of systems engineering in the field, by experimenting on highly reconfigurable autonomous swarms. This special session will address the topic of system of systems engineering in robotics with an emphasis on foundations for sustainable and adaptive autonomous systems. These foundations should enrich the currently existing system of systems taxonomy and governance standards (ISO/IEC/IEEE 21841:2019, 21839:2019, 21840:2019) to take into account large scale AI-driven robotics autonomous systems trends and propose both theoretical and methodological frameworks to allow optimized robotics systems design. This session is open to researchers and industry practitioners who have demonstrated the value of systems engineering and systems architecture methods, concepts and standards for the design of autonomous robotic systems or systems of systems, or conversely to those who have identified their limits, ambiguities, gaps by relying on practical or theoretical case studies from robotics.

                                                      Special Session Leader: Omar Hammami 

Prof. Omar Hammami holds a Phd in computer science from Toulouse University and a HDR in Physics from University Paris-Saclay. He is an expert in the fields of System engineering (MBSE/SoSe), Modeling and simulation, Multi-disciplinary Analysis and Optimization (MDAO) and Defense simulation. He has been involved in numerous cooperative R&D projects in these fields with the industry. He is a Professor at ENSTA PARIS since 2000 and responsible for the field of system engineering and from 1993 to 2000 Associate Professor and Head of the Performance Evaluation laboratory in Japan. Omar Hammami is a co-president of the Hub AE&C of the cluster of competitiveness Systematic, the Paris Region Deep Tech Ecosystem and vice-President of AFIS French INCOSE Chapter. He is involved in several NATO working groups among them Digital Twin and Quantifying Defense Capabilities using Data Analytics and Mathematical Modelling. He is a consultant and international expert for various international bodies and organizations in the field of System engineering, HPC and Quantum Computing.

Contact Omar HAMMAMI ENSTA Paris | Institut Polytechnique de Paris 828 boulevard des Maréchaux 91120 Palaiseau France omar.hammami@polytechnique.edu

Systems Engineering for Smart Manufacturing Systems

1. Session Topic and Motivation

Smart manufacturing systems (SMS) represent a rapidly evolving class of cyber-physical production environments that integrate advanced sensing, automation, data analytics, AI-driven optimization, and distributed human–machine collaboration. As these systems grow in scale and interconnectivity, they increasingly behave not as isolated production units but as system-of-systems (SoS): heterogeneous, autonomous, networked subsystems that co-evolve, reconfigure, and coordinate to achieve emergent capabilities.

This special session aims to explore the system-of-systems engineering (SoSE) challenges, methods, and opportunities associated with designing, integrating, managing, and securing smart manufacturing ecosystems. Key SoS concerns—such as interoperability, resilience, lifecycle management, governance, human-system integration, and multi-level optimization—are becoming central to modern manufacturing. This makes SMS a crucial and timely domain for the SoSE community.

The session is significant for SoSE because it will:

• Highlight manufacturing environments as real-world testbeds for SoS theories and architectures.
• Present methods for handling autonomy, uncertainty, distributed decision-making, and dynamic reconfiguration.
• Demonstrate how SoSE contributes to industrial digital transformation, sustainability, and large-scale operational resilience.

2. Benefits of a Special Session Format

Organizing this topic as a special session rather than as a collection of ordinary conference papers offers several benefits:

• Coherent Thematic Focus: It creates a unified venue for SoSE researchers who work on manufacturing systems but are currently dispersed across different tracks.
• Cross-disciplinary Integration: Smart manufacturing involves systems engineering, industrial engineering, AI/ML, control, and human factors. The special session provides a structured format to synthesize these viewpoints.
• Stronger Impact and Visibility: A focused session will attract attendees from both the SoSE community and relevant industry sectors, increasing engagement.
• Opportunity for Collaboration: The session will encourage new research partnerships across universities, laboratories, and industry.

3. Session Organization

• Total Duration: 90 minutes (one full conference session block).
• Structure:
  
  • Opening overview (10 minutes) – Introduction to SoSE challenges in smart manufacturing.
  • Four peer-reviewed presentations (4 × 15 minutes = 60 minutes)
  • Panel-style discussion (15 minutes) – Moderated dialogue among presenters and audience about emerging research needs and collaboration opportunities.
• Presentation Types:
  
  • Research papers, Applied studies and demonstrators, Case studies from industry partners
• Expected Outcomes:
  
  • Identification of key SoSE research gaps in smart manufacturing
  • Cross-domain collaboration opportunities
  • Recommendations for standardization, modeling frameworks, and validation methods

4. Presenter Attraction and Selection

Presenters will be recruited through:

• A targeted call to relevant SoSE, manufacturing, and cyber-physical systems research communities.
• Direct invitations to authors with strong related work from recent journals and conferences.

The selection process will be same for SOSE conference:

• Submitted abstracts/papers will undergo a standard peer-review process handled by the special session organizers.
• Selection criteria will emphasize relevance to SoSE, technical rigor, novelty, and clarity of contribution.

Special Session Leaders: Daryl Powell (USN) and Alessia Napoleone (TU DELFT)  

Contact person: Prof. Daryl Powell, University of South-Eastern Norway, Campus Kongsberg, 

                            Email: daryl.powell@usn.no