The design of complex systems-of-systems (SoS) in the presence of changing requirements, rapidly evolving technologies, an uncertain and often unpredictable operational environment, and a constantly shrinking budget continues to be one of the most challenging design problems faced by engineers. Modern systems are becoming more interrelated and interoperable, meaning that the design of the underlying architecture is often more important to operational success than the design of any single component of the system. Research in this area aims to address these complex interactions and attempts to optimize the system-of- systems at the macro-level. A key enabler for reduced cost and cycle time is the ability to rapidly analyze the design space and explore different methods, such as an architecture-based approach enabled by physics-based modeling. The research explored the use of a top-down, capability-based approach to decompose the problem space, create executable operational and system architecture products, use those products to execute modeling and simulation, and pull the information obtained from modeling and simulation into a dynamic, real-time decision-making tool.

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