Publication

Systems 2020 is the research effort to answer a major portion of the challenge embodied in the DoD’s science and technology priority for Engineered Resilient Systems (ERS). As a follow-on to the SERC’s work in defining technical approaches for Systems 2020, DASD(SE) requested the SERC to work on two tasks. Task 1 involved working with Government research and engineering centers, and laboratories to characterize the design and systems engineering (SE) tools available to DoD projects, along with their potential for using these tools in integrated demonstrations of their capability to support representative future DoD systems acquisitions with respect to purpose, affordability, and interoperability. Task 2 involved identifying several design challenge problems to characterize the integrated environment capabilities being identified in Task 1. Task 1 included visits to several DoD centers and laboratories; participation in several working group meetings for Systems 2020 and its extension to the Engineering Resilient Systems (ERS) initiative; and review of previous SERC and other tool assessments. It concluded that the purpose, affordability, and interoperability, as well as scalability of the computer-aided design (CAD) and SE tools available to DoD were weak with respect to the complexities of future DoD missions and net-centric systems of systems. Based on discussion of the Task 1 analysis results with the sponsors, the original Task 2 statement was reinterpreted to involve the SERC Research Council in defining one or more representative future design challenge problems, and in determining key research ideas and directions that would enable DoD to cope with the challenges. This report includes the resulting two Grand Challenge scenarios of particularly difficult threat complexes beyond the reach of current tool support capabilities, with indications of the type of next-generation tools that would enable successful DoD responses. It also presents four high-leverage research areas that would be key to realizing the rapid and effective results described in the scenarios, using the Heilmeier criteria for evaluating proposed research initiatives:

•  Affordability, Agility, and Resilience
• Enterprise Systems Engineering and Model Integration
• Trusted Systems and Cyber Security
• Human-Determined Systems

These were presented and discussed with the sponsors in a full-day offsite at the end of the study