A Context‐Enabled Systems Development Method: The Case of Semi‐Autonomous Remotely Operated Vehicles in an Arctic Environment
Anders Roe Nykaas, YangYang Zhao · INCOSE International Symposium · 2017
Abstract The Arctic areas are the new point of focus for the oil and gas industry, due to its large reserves of hydrocarbons. However, the extreme climate makes direct operation of existing systems hazardous. Aiding the need to redesign the ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle) for the Arctic scene, this study aims to create a systemic method to enable system requirements development for an extreme and unfamiliar situation. This study jointly employs the system of systems thinking, contextual architecting, ConOps and hazard identification method to derive the systemic method to address the system of interest, and applies it in the case of battery requirements of a semi‐autonomous ROV for Arctic applications. In this way, based on expert interviews and second‐hand data, the field‐layout for a potential oilfield in the artic is firstly crafted; the working scenarios are created; finally, the power range of the ROV can be calculated. It is found that this method can enable an analytical way of determining the contexts impact on the system and thus may allow for the successful determination of system requirements in unknown contexts.