Multimodal System Design Integration Using Category Theory

Systems Engineering discipline oversees the system’s conceptual, logical, and physical integration. A collaborative mindset is a key success factor for complex systems' conceptual, logical, and physical integration. Currently, hybrid design methodologies across the enterprise (particularly ad-hoc collaborations such as cross-industry programs, public-private partnerships, corporate mergers, and everyday projects involving multiple disciplines) may result in islands or canyons of digitalization, automation, and model-driven design. Teams that rely mostly on informal or semiformal communication or exchange diagrams and documents may find it extremely hard to scale up and maintain the quality of multidisciplinary systems. We propose a method to decrease disparity and misalignment in Collaborative Multimodal Design projects, which relies on Category Theory – a mathematical theory of representations and transformations. Categorical Multimodal Design (CMD) defines a rigorous process for categorical concepts adoption and implementation in design activities and provides practical and easy-to-use tools to create integration schemes across multiple design disciplines. CMD thus lowers the entry barriers into formal paradigms for systems designers and engineers who may need to generate or process system-level concept representations but may not have the means to do so. We show how CMD can be applied in designing a passenger counting system with dual commercial and military aviation use cases.