Date of Award

Summer 2014

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Aeronautics and Astronautics

First Advisor

Daniel A. DeLaurentis

Committee Member 1

William Crossley

Committee Member 2

Saurabh Bagchi

Abstract

In the field of Systems Engineering, a movement is underway to capture the aspects of a system in a centralized model format instead of various documents. This is the basis of Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE). In order to better formalize this change, the Systems Modeling Language (SysML) was developed to characterize an ontology for MBSE. Despite the growth of both MBSE practices and SysML tools, they have yet to be rigorously analyzed as to their applicability to the field of System-of-Systems (SoS). This thesis applies SysML to a methodology for System-of-Systems Engineering (SoSE) known as the Wave Model, which focuses on an iterative approach to SoS development. Each applicable step in the Wave Model is performed within SysML. Three different SoS types - directed, acknowledged, and collaborative - are studied within the domain of a distrubuted sensor management problem. As each SoS is established, evaluated, and updated, the applicability of SysML to each step is discussed. It is found that SysML is capable of defining, analyzing, and evolving a SoS via the processes described in the Wave Model. SysML excels at strictly defining and organizing the elements and features of a SoS while requiring more development in the analysis portions of the SoSE process.

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