Composable Architecture & Design Applying Product Line and Systems of Systems Concepts to the Design of Unique,
Complex Cyber-Physical Systems
12/03/2014 – Christopher Oster
About Me
• B.S. Computer Science, M.S. Computer Engineering –
Penn State University
• 11 years at Lockheed Martin
– Systems & Software Architect at Lockheed Martin Advanced
Technologies Lab, Chief Architect for DARPA Insight Program
• Research Interests
– Analytics
– Systems Thinking
– Decision Analysis
– Engineering Methodologies
– Systems Architecture
3 © 2014, Christopher Oster
Committee Chair and Members
• Chair: Dr. Jon Wade
• Members
– Dr. Rob Cloutier (Stevens, SSE)
– Dr. Souran Manoochehri (Stevens, Mechanical Engineering)
– Dr. Ricardo Valerdi (Arizona State)
– Mr. Sanford Friedenthal
© 2014, Christopher Oster
Problem Statement
• Product line and platform-based design approaches can drive
down the recurring cost of new unique mission systems, however
traditional product line approaches do not work well for system
families where each implementation has significantly unique
operational requirements (i.e. aerospace & defense)
• Organizations developing complex cyber-physical systems have
often struggled with realizing the full value of their organizational
intellectual property as structured, managed reuse has proven elusive, especially within the Aerospace & Defense market
• Composable design is a systems architecture and development
concept focusing on composing new systems from known components, designs, product lines and reference architectures
as opposed to focusing on "blank sheet" designs based on requirements decomposition alone
5 © 2014, Christopher Oster
Traditional Product Lines
• “… A set of [systems]
that share a common,
managed set of
features satisfying the
specific needs of a
particular market
segment or mission and
that are developed
from a common set of
core assets in a
prescribed way” –
Carnegie Mellon SEI
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Bosch’s Product Line Taxonomy [1]
© 2014, Christopher Oster
Composable Architectures
• Capture variability through an overarching reference architecture, mathematical constraints (design rules) and a catalog of alternatives at the feature, component, subsystem (or system) level
• The system reference architecture establishes the design context for a composable, optimization-based decision support tool suite
• Mathematical rules indicate what selections are compatible with other selections, what requirements constrain specific design choices and what attribute values are allowed within the context of a valid system architecture
• The catalog model supports strategic reuse of existing components and designs by ensuring they are considered in context by architects during new system designs
7 © 2014, Christopher Oster
Hypotheses
• Traditional product line design methods, centered on feature tree decomposition,
do not scale well into markets and problem types where constraining system
configurations to a limited set of variants is not desired, but where both
commonality and reuse of system and infrastructure elements are.
• A composable design approach for managing this class of product lines provides
a mechanism for strategically managing commonality while supporting high
variability in final products.
• The specific value of implementing a composable design framework in a given
organization will be tied to the impact of reuse of given elements (including design
elements, supporting infrastructure, intellectual property, etc) by category.
Specifically for the design, development, production and test of a cyber-physical
system, this value will exceed 25% of the cost of a system, as compared to a
design created “from scratch”.
• The implementation of a composable design framework for an organization will
drive up the likelihood of reuse of a given component over more traditional reuse
methodologies, increasing the value of a given reusable asset by greater than
25%.
Innovation and Contributions to Field
• Composable design provides a mechanism for
applying product line concepts to families of solutions
with widely varying mission use cases
• This research is providing the following contributions to
the systems engineering field
– Formalizing a composable data modeling methodology for
complex cyber-physical product families
– Developing and verifying a mathematical constraint
language and toolkit extending SysML to capture variability
rules and capability interfaces to ensure composed solutions are valid and mission compliant
– Designing and Implementing an optimization guided design synthesis capability applying a novel multi-tier design
optimization approach
9 © 2014, Christopher Oster
Composable Design Reference Architecture
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Composable System Reference Architecture
Structural Architecture
Model
Architectural Variability
Model
Component Capabilities
Model
System Verification
Model
System Optimization
Model
Cost Model
Variability Constraints
Model
SoS Mission/
Threat Models
SoS Mission/
Threat Models
SoS Mission/
Threat Models
Mission Analysis Models
SoS Mission/
Threat Models
SoS Mission/
Threat Models
SoS Mission/
Threat Models
Capability Performance
Models
Descriptive Model
Parametric Model
Analysis Model
© 2014, Christopher Oster
Constraint-based Design
• Multiple sets of individual constraints allow architects to establish rules of design without pre-establishing a full feature tree common in product line approaches and variability modeling
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Input 1
Input 2
Input 3
Input 4
Input 5
Input 6
Constraints
IC1: … IC2: … IC3: … SC1: … SC2: … SC3: …
Available Configs
Valid Configs
1. Establish constraint order based on data dependency graph
2. Navigate model for constraint input values 3. Populate execution framework with known data values 4. Execute independent constraints 5. For each available configuration
1. Execute each selection-dependent constraint in the constraint set
2. If all constraints pass, configuration is valid 3. If any constraint fail, record which constraint
resulted in failure and end 6. Populate results into output variables
and establish valid configuration list for this constraint 7. Move to next constraint set and repeat
Required_Component_Bandwidth must be
less than or equal to Total_Comms_Bandwidth
– SUM(Selected_Components_Bandwidth)
© 2014, Christopher Oster
Approach – Guided Synthesis
• If we have… – Governing reference architecture
– Model-based relationships and constraints
– Links to digital design artifacts
– Analyses for system level KPPs
• We can optimize a system design for a given mission need, but… – Finding an optimal design is computationally challenging for a sufficiently complex system given the
combinatorics of the problem.
– This tiered approach is structured to allow for real-time assessment such that an architect can interactively design a near-optimal system.
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Tier One: SoS Characterization
Tier Two: Tradespace Trimming
Tier Three: Guided Optimization
Mission Definition
System Architect
Representative Missions
Component Technologies
Candidate Configuration(s)
Batch Mode (offline)
Interactive
Reference Architecture
Selection Made
© 2014, Christopher Oster
Tool Architecture
13 © 2014, Christopher Oster
Results
• Predicted benefits of Composable Design
– Faster turnaround time for bids and bid architectures
– Better handoff of information from bid to program start
– Better control of organizational reuse
• Drive cost out of supply chain through common parts
• Increase the value of infrastructure investments
• Limit the cost of engineering release
• Initial pilot effort underway with Lockheed Martin
Conclusions/Future Research
• Composable Design methods provide a mechanism
for managing organizational intellectual property in a
value-driven way
• Methods and framework will continue to be
developed in accordance with the research design
previously discussed
• True impact of the methodology will be measured
through industry piloting.
– Lockheed Martin Space Systems pilot already underway
– Additional engagement from non-aerospace desired
Contact
Christopher Oster [email protected]