From aeronautics and manufacturing to healthcare and disaster management, systems engineering (SE) now focuses on designing applications that ensure performance optimization, robustness, and reliability while combining an emerging group of heterogeneous systems to realize a common goal.
Use SoS to Revolutionize Management of Large Organizations, Factories, and Systems Intelligent Control Systems with an Introduction to System of Systems Engineering integrates the fundamentals of artificial intelligence and systems control in a framework applicable to both simple dynamic systems and large-scale system of systems (SoS). For decades, NASA has used SoS methods, and major manufacturers--including Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, Northrop-Grumman, Raytheon, BAE Systems--now make large-scale systems integration and SoS a key part of their business strategies, dedicating entire business units to this remarkably efficient approach.
Simulate Novel Robotic Systems and ApplicationsTranscending theory, this book offers a complete and practical review of SoS and some of its fascinating applications, including:

• Manipulation of robots through neural-based network control
• Use of robotic swarms, based on ant colonies, to detect mines
• Other novel systems in which intelligent robots, trained animals, and humans cooperate to achieve humanitarian objectives

Training engineers to integrate traditional systems control theory with soft computing techniques further nourishes emerging SoS technology. With this in mind, the authors address the fundamental precepts at the core of SoS, which uses human heuristics to model complex systems, providing a scientific rationale for integrating independent, complex systems into a single coordinated, stabilized, and optimized one. They provide readers with MATLAB(R) code, which can be downloaded from the publisher's website to simulate presented results and projects that offer practical, hands-on experience using concepts discussed throughout the book.

Thrishantha Nanayakkara was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland. From 2003 to 2007, he was a faculty member at the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka, and was the principal investigator of the Laboratory for Intelligent Field Robots at the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Dr. Nanayakkara was also the founding general chair of the International Conference on Information and Automation, and is an associate editor of the Journal of Control and Intelligent Systems. At present, he is a fellow in the Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University, and a research affiliate of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Ferat Sahin currently serves as the deputy editor-in-chief for International Journal of Computers and Electrical Engineering and an associate editor for IEEE Systems Journal and AutoSoft Journal, as also serves as the technical cochair of the IEEE SMC International Conference on System of Systems Engineering (SOSE 2008 and SOSE 2009). He is also the director of the Multi Agent Bio-Robotics Laboratory at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), where he is also currently an associate professor.

Mo M. Jamshidi has served in various capacities with the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, the U.S. Department of Energy, NASA Headquarters, NASA JPL, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and the Los Alamos National Laboratory. He has also served in various academic and industrial positions at various national and international organizations including IBM and GM Corporation. In 1999, he was a NATO Distinguished Professor in Portugal, and in 2008, he was a UK Royal Academy of Engineering fellow in the UK. Dr. Jamshidi is currently the Lutcher Brown endowed chair professor at the University of Texas, San Antonio.