Approach to capability-based system-of-systems framework in support of naval ship design

Abstract

This paper represents the latest instantiation of a series of evolving work attempting to improve the methods and techniques used for designing and supporting the acquisition of complex military systems, with an immediate application to naval surface combatants. Ship design provides an ideal proof-of-concept as traditional methods may have been restrictively anchored by designing ships within intrinsic ship systems capabilities as opposed to designing ships as an element of a SoS. The postulation is that modern naval ship design should consider the systems of interest as components subsumed by a holistic environment encompassing assets and capabilities inorganic to a naval platform. This position paper propose a starting point approach intended to provide a more defined means of establishing and improving the ship design process as part of a multi-layered maritime domain warfare enterprise. The paper will first explore the applications of SoS theories in the naval context and offer foundational definitions to better explain what is meant by capability-based framework. The proposed methodology provides a structured and cohesive approach for identifying and assessing ship capability portfolio with traceable and better known impacts on mission effectiveness, affordability and risk, in the early stages of ship design within the scope of a naval system-of-systems.