Closed Systems Paradigm for Intelligent Systems
Niloofar Shadab (Virginia Tech, USA)
Tyler Cody (Virginia Tech, USA)
Alejandro Salado (The University of Arizona, USA)
Peter Beling (University of Virginia, USA)
Intelligent systems ought to be distinguished as a special type of system. While some adopt this view informally, in practice, systems engineering methods for intelligent systems are still centered around traditional systems engineering notions of engineering by aggregation and decomposition of components. We posit that this traditional approach follows from holding a notion of open systems as the fundamental precept and that engineering intelligent systems, in contrast, requires an approach that holds notions of closed systems as fundamental precepts. We take a systems theoretic approach to defining open and closed system phenomena and their relation to engineering intelligence. We aim to institute a closed-system approach to characterize intelligence as a property of the system’s relation to its context by emboldening the shift from the concepts behind the requirement-functions relationships in systems engineering and aligning them with the presented closed systems view. We propose the concept of variety; particularly the law of requisite variety to enable a closed view paradigm in engineering intelligent systems. We discuss how open and closed view approaches to engineering intelligent systems address variety differently, as well as the implications of this difference on engineering practices. Then, we provide a research roadmap for systems engineers to align their practices with the closed system view.
Multilayer network modeling and stability analysis of Internet of battlefield things
Haihao Ding (National University of Defense Technology, China)
Qingsong Zhao (National University of Defense Technology & College of Information System and Management, China)
Intelligent service network under the paradigm of the Internet of Things (IoT) uses sensor and network communication technology to realize the interconnection of everything and real-time communication between devices. Under the background of combat, all kinds of sensor devices and equipment units need to be highly networked to realize interconnection and information sharing, which makes the IoT technology hopeful to be applied in the battlefield to interconnect these entities to form the Internet of Battlefield Things (IoBT). This paper analyzes the related concepts of IoBT, and constructs the IoBT multilayer dependency network model, then constructs the weighted super-adjacency matrix according to the coupling weights within and between different layers, and the stability model of IoBT is analyzed and derived. Finally, an example of IoBT network is given to provide a reference for analyzing the stability factors of IoBT network.
