Externalizing Requirements for Achieving Operational Independence in Systems-of-Systems: A Mapping Study

Systems designed to be Constituent Systems (CS) of a System-of-System (SoS) should be able to instantaneously connect themselves to an SoS whereas still preserving (and coping with) their Operational Independence (OI). However, several systems presently available are not qualified to be part of an SoS due the fact they cannot preserve their OI. Despite OI relevance, we observe a need for characterizing the requirements so that a system can accordingly achieve OI. Based on this context, the main contribution of this paper is to communicate results of an investigation on how OI has been addressed in SoS. A systematic mapping was carried out and a set of 359 studies was retrieved from an automatic search. 33 studies were selected, analyzed and had their data extracted after an initial selection and applying the snowballing technique. Results reveal some main requirements to achieve OI, such as (i) defining OI degree of CS; (ii) scheduling and planning CS activities; and (iii) exchanging information and coordinating activities with other CS.