Systems of Systems: A Control Theoretic View

This paper considers the notion of SoS as an evolution of the standard notion of systems, provides a clear distinction to the standard notion of composite systems and aims to provide an abstract and generic definition that is detached from the particular domain as well as a classification of the families of SoS. We present a new abstract definition of the notion of System of Systems as an evolution of the notion of Composite Systems, empowered by the concept of autonomy and participation in tasks usually linked to games. Control theoretic concepts and methodologies are used to provide the characterization of the notion of "systems play" that is used as the evolution of the notion of the interconnection topology. In this set up the subsystems in SoS act as autonomous intelligent agents in a multi-agent system that is defined by a central task and possibly a game.