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This paper describes the step-by-step processes towards the formalization of a core ontology for missions and capabilities in systems of systems, and the development of a specific system of systems domain ontology from the formalized ontology. The study traces the ontology development process through the SABIOx methodology's requirements, setup, capture, design, and implementation phases. In this process, we demonstrate the core ontology's usability and reusability. Usability refers to the ontology's adequacy for specific use as a reference point for SoS knowledge exploration for development and operational purposes, and reusability refers to the ontology's adequacy for several uses, such as facilitating the understanding of different domain-specific systems of systems. This demonstration is done in three steps: formalization of the core ontology, exploration of the usefulness of this formalization, and development of a domain ontology from the core ontology. These result in: the incorporation of systematic ontology development processes; the application of ontology tools for machine readability; coherence and consistency checking of the ontology artifact; querying support for the ontology knowledge base; and testing of the core knowledge with a domain-specific system of systems. An alignment of these aspects provides different points of view of how a system of systems can be formulated, how the concepts collectively describe the development of an SoS emergent behavior, and how the ontology knowledge base can be explored to support decision frameworks guiding a system of systems.

Digital twins, dynamic digital representations of physical systems, are emerging as transformative tools for enhancing crisis preparedness and resilience in critical societal sectors. By enabling real-time monitoring, simulation, and optimization, these technologies offer actionable insights to support proactive risk mitigation, efficient resource allocation, and continuous improvement of crisis response strategies. This study provides a comprehensive knowledge overview of digital twins, focusing on their applicability and impact in key sectors such as energy, healthcare, and transportation. Specifically, it examines the essential services most suited for digital twin adoption, the role of safety-critical data throughout their life-cycle, and their utility in identifying and mitigating risks within critical infrastructure. We employed a mixed-methods research design, combining systematic and gray literature reviews with expert interviews to integrate academic insights with practical perspectives. The findings reveal significant opportunities for digital twins to enhance operational efficiency, strategic planning, and crisis management. However, practical implementation remains in its infancy, with challenges related to cost, complexity, and limited real-world applications. In addition, this study provides actionable recommendations for stakeholders, emphasizing investment in digital twin technologies, robust data governance, and the development of standardized protocols. Future research directions include exploring applications of DTs in emerging sectors, such as crisis preparedness and societal resilience, advancing artificial intelligence integration, and adopting a system-of-systems perspective to address societal challenges comprehensively.

This study proposes a mapping of a core ontology for missions and capabilities in Systems of Systems to a foundational ontology. It gives a brief overview of the core ontology, compares various foundation ontologies, outlines suitability characteristics, and maps the two ontologies. The mapping process is based on a superclasssubclass mapping. To ensure that the mapping is to the highest level of granularity, this process goes beyond the selected foundation ontology and includes extensions provided by common core ontologies. The outcome of the mapping provides insights into the richness of ontology realism, the connectedness of concepts and ontologies, the consistency this mapping adds to systems engineering efforts by supporting the methodological approach of Model-Based Systems Engineering, and the necessity of conformance in ontological research and implementation. This mapping supports the alignment in knowledge representation by explicitly highlighting the kind of expected input of each core ontology concept. © 2026, Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved.

In many areas, independent and heterogeneous systems collaborate towards a common goal, and their assembly is referred to as a System of Systems (SoS). The mediating actors that orchestrate the SoS are frequently used to enhance collaboration. They support onboarding new constituent systems, monitoring and capability identification, goal transformation, workflow composition and execution, world modelling, data curation, and interoperability translation, as well as ensuring security and data privacy. With recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), there is potential to improve orchestration, management, and overall performance. Thus, SoS is transitioning towards an enhanced, intelligent System of Systems (iSoS). This paper explores the opportunities and challenges of enhancing intelligent governance. Industrial and academic experts on SoS and AI have systematically analysed the potential and challenges for AI-based enhancement in each orchestration role. These contributions indicate the most promising areas for improvement, primarily in terms of more efficient and effective functionality and adaptability to changing circumstances.

In cybernetics, the Viable Systems Model (VSM) is used to describe the control of complex autonomous and adaptable systems. VSM consists of five levels of sub-systems, from lower level operations towards higher level strategy, and it has been successfully applied to several areas of operational management as a tool for diagnostics. In this paper we analyze the suitability of VSM towards Systems of Systems (SoS) and whether it can be leveraged as a positive mechanism for the control of complex SoS. We summarize VSM and its usage in organizational management, and connect the main SoS topics towards VSM. We also extend the basic principles and ideas of VSM towards SoS, and discuss the implications and practical considerations. We evaluate the usefulness of VSM through a electrified construction site use case, and critically analyze its wider application in the SoS domain.

Configuration design in System of Systems (SoS) environments presents substantial challenges due to the autonomy, heterogeneity, and complex interdependencies of constituent systems. This paper investigates configuration designs in SoS through a multi-agent simulation approach. The automated quarry system is used as an illustrative case study. We identify and characterize parameters, constraints, and interdependencies that shape configuration options in an automated quarry, including factors such as dump trucks carrying capacity, loaders efficiency, and road conditions. To address the high-dimensional and dynamic nature of the configuration space, we develop a twophase design space exploration (DSE) methodology combining sensitivity analysis with multi-objective evolutionary optimization. Our simulation framework models the operational dynamics of an automated quarry, capturing both static constraints (e.g., fleet size, loading capacity) and dynamic environmental factors (e.g., road condition, queues, and delays). Results demonstrate that the proposed approach efficiently narrows the configuration space and identifies Pareto-optimal solutions that significantly improve mission outcomes in terms of increasing throughput and delay reduction. The analysis reveals that parameters like dump trucks carrying capacity, queues and delay dominate system performance.

Dealing with Systems of Systems (SoS) translates to handling various cross-cutting concerns. These include autonomy of Constituent Systems (CS), acceptable abstraction levels for different stakeholders and views, meanwhile observing adaptability and traceability of capabilities, as well as attaining satisfactory outcome of the SoS. Applying systems thinking in this context is an interesting research challenge due to the multi-dimensionality of the capability concerns involved. What if the wholesomeness of the system were examined from capability aspects? In this study, we focus on understanding the problem domain of SoS by looking at the capability viewpoint of SoS. We look at how to gauge capability-related concerns by treating capability as a system. The main contribution of this paper is a mapping of capability concerns to specific SoS dimensions, and a broader reflection on the impact of autonomy, interdependence, and evolution of capability associated concerns in SoS.

Systems-of-systems are often characterized as systems where the constituent parts have some independence from the whole. Recent research has aimed at clarifying in more detail what this independence means. It has shown that independence requires the constituent systems to be agents that observe the system-of-systems from within and construct internal models of it as a basis for decisions. This view on observers as parts of the system-of-systems parallels development in the field of second-order cybernetics several decades ago, yet the connection between that field and systems-of-systems has not been explored previously. This paper, therefore, summarizes key concepts from second-order cybernetics, including the subtopic autopoiesis. It then discusses what the implications are on systems-of-systems engineering through the identification of 17 concerns. These concerns relate to the physical topology, behavior, and control of the system-of-systems. This paper shows how these concerns directly relate to the theoretical concepts of second-order cybernetics and autopoiesis, and thereby, opens the door to further exploitation of this theoretical foundation.

Orchestration, an approach to service composition, has emerged as a promising solution to integrate independent constituent systems (CS) in a System of Systems (SoS). However, safety in SoS orchestrations remains unexplored. In this paper, we introduce SOSoS (Safe Orchestration of Systems of Systems), a process that utilizes the System-Theoretic Process Analysis (STPA) steps extended with the features proposed in the software product line engineering (SPLE) approach to cope with safety in the inherent SoS variability. We also demonstrate SOSoS in action by considering a case study from the construction domain. As a result, we define SoS-level safety constraints that could lead to actionable technical recommendations for making systems of systems orchestrations safer.