Requirements Engineering in Model Based Systems Engineering

Researchers

Dan Underwood, PhD researcher, Centre for Advanced Design Engineering, Knowledge Based Engineering Lab

Supervisors: Dr Pathmeswaran Raju and Prof Craig Chapman

Background

In their vision for 2020, one of the International Council on Systems Engineering’s (INCOSE) aims for systems engineering in the future is to transition from the document-centric processes that are used today to a more model-based approach. The purpose of this research is to look at how the systems engineering sub-activity of requirements engineering fits into a Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) world.

Research Aims

The aim of this research is to investigate the current state of requirements engineering and management in modern systems engineering techniques, and develop a requirements framework to fill gaps in current methods of implementation.

Method of research

This project consists of a literature based review, the development of a document-based framework, and the computational implementation of this framework within COTS systems engineering software packages. Testing of the resulting framework will be carried out using case study assessments.

Outcomes

While this project is still in the early stages, an initial literature review has been conducted in order to examine how requirements engineering is currently implemented within MBSE. From this research, a set of requirements that an MBSE requirements framework should fulfil has been developed. The next stage is to develop this requirements framework to meet these requirements then test it using case studies.

Applications

It is hoped that this research will be of benefit to any project that utilises a large amount of requirements engineering. Typically this is in large and complex product development projects such as those in the aerospace and defence sectors.