EAGER: Control versus Prediction in Systems Engineering

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Systems engineering is the technical activity that coordinates all the parts of a large system development. To date, a major part of systems engineering management of the development of large complex engineered systems such as aircraft, spacecraft or transportation systems has been based on predicting the outcome of the development project: How much time it will take? How much will the development cost? Or, how much will the eventual product cost to manufacture? In current practice, answering these questions almost always results in underestimates. Despite decades of research on improving such predictions, no progress has been made. This project will attempt to find a more successful approach to managing these systems that does not rely on prediction, but instead focuses on control, controlling cost, weight, schedule and performance. This is a short, high-risk exploratory research project to establish the feasibility of a controls-based management strategy. If the strategy is feasible, further research will be necessary to develop the new method.The research plan is to deconstruct systems engineering to its essence and reconstruct an approach based on methods and ideas available in modern control theory, and then determine how to measure the performance of this new approach, exploiting promising research methodologies from other fields. However, actual measurement of the performance of the method through case studies will be left for future work. The project will employ a basic optimal regulator as one strategy, and will explore a dynamic-programming-like approach as a second approach. The results will, if successful, provide insights into a new and more effective approach to systems engineering.