Multi-agent based architecture for acknowledged system of systems

Negotiation and collaboration issues in large organizations, with centralized control, across the globe, are becoming more complex with each passing day. The Acknowledged System of Systems (SoS) is a new approach that addresses some of these issues in a systematic, efficient manner. This paper proposes a hierarchical architectural framework to support Acknowledged SoS architecting and analysis for a Department of Defense (DoD) Acquisition process. A major challenge of the successful planning and evolution of an Acknowledged SoS is the lack of understanding of the impact of presence or absence of a system and its interface with another constituent system on the overall architecture. The agent based model (ABM) structure developed here provides Acknowledged SoS manager that has both ability to address the managerial issues as well as a decision making tool for SoS architecting. This paper offers a complete integration of the techniques used to represent SoS architectures. The work illustrates the modeling approach through a domain setting.