Systems-of-systems development: Initiatives, trends, and challenges

Systems-of-Systems (SoS) refer to large, complex, and software-intensive systems, resulted from the interoperability among heterogeneous, independent constituent systems. The main purpose of SoS is to perform tasks that could not be achieved by these constituents separately; besides, unique SoS characteristics impose new challenges to their development processes. We conducted a Systematic Mapping to identify initiatives, trends, and challenges in the SoS development and, as a result, 32 initiatives were identified. We also evaluated these initiatives with regard to the adherence to the technical processes of IEEE/ISO/IEC 15288:2015 and to the software implementation essential processes of IEEE/ISO/IEC 12207:2008. In general, these initiatives emphasize artifacts in the early stages of the development processes, addressing mainly requirements and architecture. Moreover, 17 of them emphasize the testing activity. We also summarized the SoS characteristics addressed in the studies and discuss the main trends and challenges.