Fundamental Properties of Systems of Systems
Jacques Printz, Daniel Krob · 2020
In an automobile gear box, each tooth is a module with regard to the quality system of the gear manufacturer. The functional modules and the way in which these modules interact (in other words, the inter-module communication) are conveyors of the semantic of the system of systems (SoS), in the same way as they are for the constituent systems. “Function” and “interaction“ are two inseparable aspects of the semantic. The fundamental property of the recursive diagram, illustrated in this chapter, is that the central pattern, {Exchange and Coordination Mechanism (ECM), specific functions, common functions} constructed around the ECM, is repeated recursively inside each of the system blocks, until the atomic elements constituting the SoS are reached. The chapter also discusses the laws of interoperability, with a focus on the control of errors.