Systems engineering is an interdisciplinary field of engineering and engineering management that focuses on how to design, integrate, and manage complex systems over their life cycles. At its core, systems engineering utilizes systems thinking principles to organize this body of knowledge. The individual outcome of such efforts, an engineered system, can be defined as a combination of components that work in synergy to collectively perform a useful function.
Geoffrey Alan Landis is an American aerospace engineer and author, working for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on planetary exploration, interstellar propulsion, solar power and photovoltaics. He holds nine patents, primarily in the field of improvements to solar cells and photovoltaic devices and has given presentations and commentary on the possibilities for interstellar travel and construction of bases on the Moon, Mars, and Venus.
System of systems is a collection of task-oriented or dedicated systems that pool their resources and capabilities together to create a new, more complex system which offers more functionality and performance than simply the sum of the constituent systems. Currently, systems of systems is a critical research discipline for which frames of reference, thought processes, quantitative analysis, tools, and design methods are incomplete. The methodology for defining, abstracting, modeling, and analyzing system of systems problems is typically referred to as system of systems engineering.
Charles Elachi is a Lebanese-American professor (emeritus) of electrical engineering and planetary science at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). From 2001 to 2016 he was the 8th director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and vice president of Caltech.
In multi-objective optimization, the Pareto front is the set of all Pareto efficient solutions. The concept is widely used in engineering. It allows the designer to restrict attention to the set of efficient choices, and to make tradeoffs within this set, rather than considering the full range of every parameter.
The International Council on Systems Engineering is a not-for-profit membership organization and professional society in the field of systems engineering with about 21,000 members and associates including individual, corporate, and student members. INCOSE's main activities include conferences, publications, local chapters, certifications and technical working groups.
Multi-objective optimization or Pareto optimization is an area of multiple-criteria decision making that is concerned with mathematical optimization problems involving more than one objective function to be optimized simultaneously. Multi-objective is a type of vector optimization that has been applied in many fields of science, including engineering, economics and logistics where optimal decisions need to be taken in the presence of trade-offs between two or more conflicting objectives. Minimizing cost while maximizing comfort while buying a car, and maximizing performance whilst minimizing fuel consumption and emission of pollutants of a vehicle are examples of multi-objective optimization problems involving two and three objectives, respectively. In practical problems, there can be more than three objectives.
DIDO is a MATLAB optimal control toolbox for solving general-purpose optimal control problems. It is widely used in academia, industry, and NASA. Hailed as a breakthrough software, DIDO is based on the pseudospectral optimal control theory of Ross and Fahroo. The latest enhancements to DIDO are described in Ross.
Universal Systems Language (USL) is a systems modeling language and formal method for the specification and design of software and other complex systems. It was designed by Margaret Hamilton based on her experiences writing flight software for the Apollo program. The language is implemented through the 001 Tool Suite software by Hamilton Technologies, Inc. USL evolved from 001AXES which in turn evolved from AXES all of which are based on Hamilton's axioms of control. The 001 Tool Suite uses the preventive concept of Development Before the Fact (DBTF) for its life-cycle development process. DBTF eliminates errors as early as possible during the development process removing the need to look for errors after-the-fact.
Kevin John Forsberg is an American engineer, business consultant, and with Harold Mooz co-founder and executive director of The Center for Systems Management, who was awarded the INCOSE Pioneer Award in 2001.
Robert Hauschild Liebeck is an American aerodynamicist, professor and aerospace engineer. Until retiring from his position as senior fellow at the Boeing Company. in 2020, he oversaw their Blended Wing Body ("BWB") program. He has been a member of the National Academy of Engineering since 1992, where he is an AIAA Honorary Fellow, the organization’s highest distinction. He is best known for his contributions to aircraft design and his pioneering airfoil designs known as the "Liebeck Airfoil". Since his retirement he remains active in aviation industry associations and continues to teach at UCI.
Model-based systems engineering (MBSE), according to the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE), is the formalized application of modeling to support system requirements, design, analysis, verification and validation activities beginning in the conceptual design phase and continuing throughout development and later life cycle phases. MBSE is a technical approach to systems engineering that focuses on creating and exploiting domain models as the primary means of information exchange, rather than on document-based information exchange. MBSE technical approaches are commonly applied to a wide range of industries with complex systems, such as aerospace, defense, rail, automotive, manufacturing, etc.
Daniele Mortari is Professor of Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M University and Chief Scientist for Space for Texas A&M ASTRO Center. Mortari is known for inventing the Flower Constellations and the k-vector range searching technique and the Theory of Functional Connections.
Moriba Kemessia Jah CorrFRSE is an American space scientist and aerospace engineer who describes himself as a "space environmentalist", specializing in orbit determination and prediction, especially as related to space situational awareness and space traffic monitoring. He is currently an associate professor of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at the University of Texas at Austin. Jah previously worked as a spacecraft navigator at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where he was a navigator for the Mars Global Surveyor, Mars Odyssey, Mars Express, Mars Exploration Rover, and his last mission was the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. He is a Fellow of the American Astronautical Society, the Air Force Research Laboratory, the International Association for the Advancement of Space Safety and, the Royal Astronomical Society. Jah was also selected into the 10th anniversary class of TED Fellows and was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2022. He also was selected into the AIAA class of Fellows and Honorary Fellows in the year of the 50th Anniversary of Apollo 11. The AIAA "confers the distinction of Fellow upon individuals in recognition of their notable and valuable contributions to the arts, sciences or technology of aeronautics and astronautics."
Christopher L. Magee is an American mechanical engineer, academic and researcher. He is Professor of the practice Emeritus in Mechanical Engineering Department and Institute for Data, Systems and Society at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He co-directs the International Design Center of Singapore University of Technology and Design.
Swati Mohan is an Indian-American aerospace engineer and was the Guidance and Controls Operations Lead on the NASA Mars 2020 mission.
The Space Systems Laboratory (SSL) is in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA. Its mission is to develop the technology and systems analysis associated with small spacecraft, precision optical systems, and International Space Station technology research and development.
David Y. Oh is an American spacecraft systems engineer and expert in electric propulsion. Dr. Oh currently works at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) as the NASA Psyche mission chief engineer. Prior to this role he served as the Project Systems Engineering Manager for Psyche. He was also the cross-cutting phase lead and lead flight director for the NASA Mars Science Laboratory mission and was recognized in popular media for living on Mars time with his family during the month following the landing of the Curiosity rover.
Maya Nasr is a Lebanese postdoctoral researcher at Harvard University. She previously received her BS'18, MS'21, and PhD'23 in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her research areas include aerospace engineering and international space law, policy, and politics.
Joaquim R. R. A. Martins is an aerospace engineer, academic, and author. He is the Pauline M. Sherman Collegiate Professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Michigan, where he directs the Multidisciplinary Design Optimization Laboratory. He also has a courtesy appointment in the Department of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering.
