Description
Overview
This course in systems engineering examines the principles and process of creating effective systems to meet application demands. Concepts, problems, and methods of systems engineering are introduced in lectures and discussions and applied in assignments and through semester-long group projects. The focus is on systems of hardware and software components engineered to perform complex behavior. Such systems embed computing elements, integrate sensors and actuators, operate in a reliable and timely fashion, and demand rigorous engineering from conception through production. Applications of robotics, which by definition constitute complex systems, will be used to illustrate applications and challenges in engineering complex systems. The course is organized as a progression through the systems engineering processes of analysis, design, implementation, and deployment with consideration of verification and validation throughout. Case studies and guest lectures in each phase present best practice in the field, and both successes and failures are considered. Reading assignments from textbooks and current literature tie theory to practical methods of creating complex engineered systems. Homework assignments reinforce concepts and provide direct experience of key techniques. Our goal is to experience rigorous engineering practice in what is often informal development. As such, much of the course will be spent developing plans, requirements, and designs. Actual implementation will occur rapidly once a mature concept and approach have been defined and evaluated.
Prerequisites
- Creativity: This course will ask you to formulate a project that meets many diverse requirements including the time frame of the course, the available resources, the skills of your group, and an application domain.
- Discipline: Students will be working to apply sound systems engineering process so some familiarity with the development process either from practical experience or introductory software engineering courses will be helpful, but most important will be the discipline required to plan and follow the process you devise.
- Enthusiasm: Project courses can be a lot of work, and much of that will occur outside lectures with your project team learning together within the framework the course provides. If you are not excited about applying the practice of systems engineering and building something, then this course is not for you.
Objectives
This course will examine the analysis, design, and systems issues of complex engineered systems with particular attention to embedded, real-time applications and in the parallel development of hardware and software. By the end of this course students will be able to:
Examine systems from many perspectives (such as software, hardware, product, etc.)
- Identify how the assumptions and constraints of each subsystem affect other subsystems
- Contrast systems engineering with software, electrical, and mechanical engineering
- Plan and manage the systems engineering process
- Identify the critical requirements imposed by applications including temporal and quality attributes
- Identify and evaluate analysis and design methods
- Identify, capture, model, and analyze system requirements
- Formulate system concepts (concept of operation)
- Architect a system
- Identify and state temporal issues associated with system performance
- Predict and assess the impact of usability issues in system operation
- Identify and resolve critical aspects of a system by prototyping
- Document designs at appropriate levels of detail
- Validate system requirements, concept, and design
- Assess risks and failure modes
- Distinguish critical functions, diagnose problems, and apply descoping strategies
- Conduct test and evaluation plans
- Judge the complexity of production and deployment issues
- Apply the entire systems engineering process from formulation though implementation
Delivery Method:
Instructor-Led Online Training
Duration
10 Days
