Engineering Intelligent Systems

6Use Cases: The Superpower of Systems Engineering

Systems Engineering is a transdisciplinary and integrative approach to enable the successful realization, use, and retirement of engineered systems, using systems principles and concepts, and scientific, technological, and management methods.

(International Council on Systems Engineering Website,https://www.incose.org/about-systems-engineering/system-and-se-definition/systems-engineering-definition)

6.1 The Main Purpose of Systems Engineering

Before we describe how intelligent systems can be designed and engineered, we should look first at the way large, complex systems are conceived and built. The complexity of technological systems made possible by miniaturized electronics, computers, and software started increasing dramatically around the time of the US–Soviet space race in the 1950s and 1960s. Spurred by national pride and competition with the Soviet Union, the United States became very creative in pushing technology to its limits and managing the engineering of complex systems. The Soviets and engineers in other countries did the same. The field that emerged came to be known as Systems Engineering.

The development of large, complex systems such as spacecraft, defense systems, satellites, and self‐driving cars faces two major challenges, both of which systems engineering attempts to addresses. First, the system must be organized, architected in a way that facilitates effective design and construction, and second, the ...