Engineering and Mastering Interwoven Systems

Networked systems are becoming increasingly complex in development and operation. Due to this complexity, it is mostly impossible to follow a simple sequential designdeploy-use cycle. Instead, development and operation will become more evolutionary in nature. Additionally, one can observe that individual complex systems are coupled with each other, even though this has never been intended in the early development of these systems. As a result, we are facing interwoven systems - multiple open time-variant systems are coupled and interact having, e.g., different goals and objectives as well as changing system and communication structure. Based on and extending the idea of composing Systems of Systems, this article identifies challenges that are becoming increasingly apparent as the inevitable integration of systems progresses.