The development of system-of-systems (SoS) requires a continuous interplay between design decisions on the SoS level and those on the level of its constituent systems (CS), which often preexist and need to be adapted as the SoS evolves. This involves not only preparing the CS to participate in a particular SoS, but also designing the CS architecture to make it easily adaptable to a future SoS context. The problem is in part addressed in an emerging SoS framework in the manufacturing domain called Industry 4.0. It focuses on connected and digitalized production with the ambition of increasing flexibility and efficiency. This paper investigates how Industry 4.0 standards can be used in an SoS context to make CS more flexible and adaptive, and evaluates their usefulness outside manufacturing. The study is based on a case from the construction domain, for which a generic SoS architecture is developed. Several extensions and adaptations of Industry 4.0 are suggested, including specifications of ontologies for missions and workflows. © 2019 The Authors. 

The work presented in this report is one of three different areas of improving the efficiency of agricultural logistics that have been investigated in the project ”Energieffektivisering av Jordbrukets logistik - fördjupning och utveckling”. The three areas are, 1) Shifting of arable land (2) Planning tool for simulating, planning and optimizing logistical work on the farm (3) KPIs for logistics work at farm level to spur efficiency. All three areas are considered important parts in the work of reducing energy consumption and climate impact from agricultural transports and in food production.

More efficient agricultural logistics can be achieved through better planning and coordination of all activities throughout the production process. This improved planning then requires decision support to get a holistic grip on the interacting parts of the process. In this report, we have begun the work to investigate how farmers can make agriculture more efficient by having access to good and simple planning and simulation systems, thereby reducing energy consumption and costs at farm level.

We have made a review of which systems (for plant cultivation) that are available on the market today (with focus on the Swedish market) and identified shortcomings, gaps and needs for continued development. We have also in a case study exemplified the decisions a farmer make, and which tools are used. In the longer term, the aim is to have tools for simulation, planning and optimization of logistics for agriculture.

There are many applications for planning, control and monitoring of agriculture activities on the market, but no purely logistics planning tools. Many of the tools available on the market are de facto not decision support, but rather business support, where the user can fill in the business conditions and to some extent follow the development during the year. For the applications to provide real decision support, they need to be more intelligent by being able to analyze large amounts of data smarter, make simulations of different scenarios and make assessments on plans. Internationally, the range of programs, apps and other IT support for agriculture management is very large, but the gaps are mainly the same. However, it is not easy to apply an internationally developed tool to Swedish conditions and regulations.

Automation is becoming prevalent in more and more industrial domains due to the potential benefits in cost reduction as well as the new approaches/solutions they enable. When machines are automated and utilized in system-of-systems, a thorough analysis of potential critical scenarios is necessary to derive appropriate design solutions that are safe as well. Hazard analysis methods like PHA, FTA or FMEA help to identify and follow up potential risks for the machine operators or bystanders and are well-established in the development process for safety critical machinery. However, safety certified individual machines can no way guarantee safety in the context of system-of-systems since their integration and interactions could bring forth newer hazards. Hence it is paramount to understand the application scenarios of the system-of-systems and to apply a structured method to identify all potential hazards. In this paper, we 1) provide an overview of proposed hazard analysis methods for system-of systems, 2) describe a case from construction equipment domain, and 3) apply the well-known System-Theoretic Process Analysis (STPA)f to our case. Our experiences during the case study and the analysis of results clearly point out certain inadequacies of STPA in the context of system-of-systems and underlines the need for the development of improved techniques for safety analysis of system-of-systems.

Road construction is a very large business segment, consuming enormous public funding every year and with significant environmental impacts. However, the rate of efficiency improvement during the last few decades has been negligible, whereas other industries, such as manufacturing, have seen very large improvements by applying automation and Leanbased flow optimization across the production system. In this paper, we outline a system-of-systems concept for road construction which applies similar principles as have previously proved successful in other industries. The paper identifies efficiency attributes and wastes in current practices, which lead to a conceptual solution that focuses on improved coordination of working machines. Technical elements from Industry 4.0 are considered as potential building blocks in this concept, identifying similarities and differences between the construction domain and other industries. Finally, challenges are identified, in particular within knowledge representation and information management.

Autonomous and intelligent construction equipment is an emergent area of research, which shares many characteristics with on-road autonomous vehicles, but also have fundamental differences. Construction vehicles usually perform repetitive tasks in confined sites, such as quarries, and cooperate with other vehicles to complete common missions. A quarry can be viewed as a system-of-systems and the vehicles are individual systems within the site system. Therefore it is important to analyze the site system, i.e. included vehicles, surrounding systems, and system context, before the introduction of autonomous vehicles. It is necessary to map the needed infrastructure, and the needed input information from on-board sensors and off-board information suppliers, before designing the vehicle electronics system. This paper describes how we identified sensory and input signal needs for an autonomous articulated hauler in a scenario at a quarry site. Different architectural alternatives are evaluated and a set-up for a quarry site is suggested.

It has been suggested in the literature to organize software in autonomous vehicles as hierarchical layers where each layer makes its own decisions based on its own world model. This paper presents two alternative designs for autonomous construction vehicles based on the layered framework 4D/RCS. As a first step, the typical use cases for these vehicles were defined. Then one use case for a hauler was traversed through the two alternatives to see how they supported safety, flexibility and the use of a product platform. We found that the coordination between bucket control and motion control must be done at a low level in the hierarchy and that the relationship between the vehicle actuators and the built-in autonomous system is important for how the software is organized.

A modern mine involves increasingly smart and connected products that are integrated in a mine automation system. Integration enable many possible applications that could substantially aid in achieving the goals of increased safety and productivity of the mine operation including the machine maintenance process. What data will be shared by the involved organizations and products, heavily affects how successful improvements of operation can be accommodated. We have devised a method to map out and evaluate envisioned new collaborative functions for a complex System-of-systems such as the mine maintenance operation. The proposed method map user stories for the involved stakeholders and estimate the value of fulfillment based on different candidates of data sharing architectures. The method is explained and exemplified by a realistic example based the real case. There seems to be a need for a method such as the presented one just to map out what new applications are really feasible. By estimating value in terms of stakeholder benefits and identifying possible showstoppers in terms of protected data, the method seems to help reveal what improvements in the mine operation is in fact possible. Deciding on a data-sharing architecture for a collaborative mine seems to provide useful design prerequisites to a developing organization improving their smart connected products.

Engineering system architectures for complex systems involves the tasks of analyzing architectural drivers, identifying architectural concerns, identifying valid architecture candidates, and evaluation of alternatives. One problem to overcome when architecting a system is the identification of valid of architectural candidates. We have developed a step-wise method for performing system architecture analysis and tested it on a sub-system in a project developing a drive system for heavy automotive applications. In this paper we present the complete method of nine steps for engineering an architecture and we elaborate in detail on the procedure to identify architectural candidates based on previously identified architectural drivers. We present a diagram depicting the proposed information model, its concepts and their relationships. In addition, the expectations on such a method as expressed by practitioners have been elicited, and we elaborate on the validity by examining how well the method indicate fulfillment. Our conclusion is that the proposed method does not fail to deliver on any of the needs and this gives an indication of usefulness. When identifying architectural candidates it is important to use proper criteria in the process. Our conclusion is that the practitioners should focus on candidates that affect the system at hand (within system boundaries), and on the candidates that address the architecturally significant system use. This is reflected in our method where we prescribe evaluation of the design candidates by validating that they solve only the right problem and by ensuring that they address the system at hand.

Developing safety critical products demands a clear safety argumentation for each product in spite of whether it has been derived from a product line or not. The functional safety standards do not explain how to develop safety critical products in product lines, and the product line concept is lacking specific approaches to develop safety critical products. Nonetheless, product lines are well-established concepts even in companies developing safety critical products. In this paper we present the results of an exploratory study interviewing 15 practitioners from 6 different companies. We identify typical challenges and approaches from industry and discuss their suitability. The challenges and approaches brought out by this study help us to identify and enhance applicable methods from the product line engineering domain that can meet the challenges in the safety critical domain as well.

The product line engineering approach is a promising concept to identify and manage reuse in a structured and efficient way and is even applied for the development of safety critical embedded systems. Managing the complexity of variability and addressing functional safety at the same time is challenging and is not yet solved. Variability management is an enabler to both establish traceability and making necessary information visible for safety engineers. We identify a set of requirements for such a method and evaluate existing variability management methods. We apply the most promising method to an industrial case and study its suitability for developing safety critical product family members. This study provides positive feedback on the potential of the model-based method PLUS in supporting the development of functional safety critical embedded systems in product lines. As a result of our analysis we suggest potential improvements for it.