Often humans are involved as decisionmakers, stakeholders, or operators increasing the complexity of the SoS. An example of a typical SoS is a Search and Rescue (SAR) organization. In order to rescue someone many system entities are needed such as helicopters, boats, and land vehicles together with trained personnel. Through collaboration the systems are able to accomplish the SAR mission, a capability that is not achievable by a single unit alone. Our society is constituted of many SoS that we use frequently in our daily lives as well as play essential roles for our societal functions.
My research is focused on finding methods or guidelines for modeling SoS at all system levels while using the appropriate model fidelity. I work mainly with agent-based modeling on the high levels of the SoS and multidisciplinary modeling for the constituent systems.
Choosing the appropriate level of complexity is central for all types of modeling, whether it is within engineering, biology, medicine, or any other field working with models. Therefor I am expanding the view beyond engineering to see how model complexity is looked at and managed in other domains. I believe that cross-domain work is essential for future technology where systems that have never collaborated before are now being interconnected.
Sofia Schön
PhD student
My research is centered on multi-level and multi-fidelity modeling of System-of-Systems (SoS). SoS are constellations of constituent systems that collaborate to achieve additional capabilities that cannot be fulfilled by a constituent system alone.
