Bachelor and Master Theses

Background

The emergence of Intelligent System of Systems (iSoS) has reshaped various domains, including healthcare, transportation, and smart cities, by enabling independent constituent systems (CSs) to collaborate and achieve shared objectives. While this orchestration enhances productivity and efficiency, it also introduces significant challenges in safety and security due to dynamic interactions, emergent behaviors, and shared data processing among constituent systems (CS). Faults or vulnerabilities in one CS can propagate, leading to cascading failures across the iSoS.

Research Objectives

Orchestration Level (SoS level): At the SoS level, the proposed framework emphasizes orchestration that includes managing dependencies and interactions and designing safety control algorithms to ensure safe decisions. At Orchestration level, the capabilities of CS are discovered and make constellations according to the received mission. A scheduler is also supposed to be there to schedule tasks which are passed to the execution manager to execute. The execution manager assigns tasks to the CS involved in the constellation.

Challenges: Complex interactions and emergent behaviors among CS, ensuring safe operation.

1. Enhancing Safety and Security: Developing advanced algorithms to ensure safe and secure decision-making in dynamic environments.
2. Validation through Use Cases: Demonstrating the proposed enhancements using a case study (e.g., intelligent system of systems in construction domain).

Methodology

The research will proceed in the following stages:

1. Literature Review: Conduct a comprehensive review of existing frameworks and methodologies for safety and security in iSoS. This includes dependability assurance and fault propagation in orchestrated systems.
2. Framework Development: Refine the orchestration-level components in an iSoS.
3. Implementation and Simulation: Use appropriate platforms (e.g., MATLAB) to implement the enhanced framework. Simulations will be conducted to evaluate its performance under realistic scenarios.
4. Case Study: Apply the enhanced framework to a representative use case, such as an intelligent system of systems in construction domain, to validate its effectiveness and practicality.

References

1. Maier, M. W. "Architecting principles for systems-of-systems." Systems Engineering: The Journal of the International Council on Systems Engineering. 1998.
2. Nordstrom, T., Sutfeld, L. R., & Besker, T. (2024, June). Exploring different Actor Roles in Orchestrations of System of Systems. In 2024 19th Annual System of Systems Engineering Conference (SoSE) (pp. 190-196).
3. Ali, N., Punnekkat, S., Rauf, A. "Modeling and Safety Analysis for Collaborative Safety-Critical Systems Using Hierarchical Colored Petri Nets." Journal of Systems and Software. 2024.

Academic Background

1. A solid understanding of systems engineering principles, especially the architecture and management of SoS.

2. Basic knowledge of safety and security principles.

4. Proficiency in English

Technical Skills

1.Programming skills (e.g., Python, Java) might be required, especially when it comes to development of the algorithem.

2. knowledge of AI/ML techniques is required