System Architecture and Complexity

Contribution of Systems of Systems to Systems Thinking

Jacques Printz

• Publisher: Wiley-ISTE
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9781786305619
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781119751502
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Electrical Engineering & Telecommunications
• Index: Technology & Engineering

The emergence of a true systemic science - the systemic one - capable of rigorously addressing the many problems posed by the design and management of the evolution of modern complex systems is therefore urgently needed if wants to be able to provide satisfactory answers to the many profoundly systemic challenges that humanity will have to face at the dawn of the third millennium. This emergence is of course not easy because one can easily understand that the development of the systemic is mechanically confronted with all the classical disciplines which can all pretend to bring part of the explanations necessary to the understanding of a system and which do not naturally see a good eye a new discipline claim to encompass them in a holistic approach ... The book of Jacques Printz is therefore an extremely important contribution to this new emerging scientific and technical discipline: it is indeed first of all one of the very few "serious" works published in French and offering a good introduction to the systemic. It gives an extremely broad vision of this field, taking a thread given by the architecture of systems, in other words by the part of the systemic that is interested in the structure of systems and their design processes, which allows everyone to fully understand the issues and issues of the systemic. We can only encourage the reader to draw all the quintessence of the masterful work of Jacques Printz which mixes historical reminders explaining how the systemic emerged, introduction to key concepts of the systemic and practical examples to understand the nature and the scope of the ideas introduced.

PART 1
The Foundations of Systemics

1
The Legacy of Norbert Wiener and the Birth of Cybernetics

Without intending to be an exhaustive historical account, this chapter provides some specific details regarding the concerns of the founders of what is now the science of systems or systemics, in order to understand the stakes that still remain extremely relevant today. Its objective is to avoid the anachronisms that are often the origins of serious misinterpretations.

In this chapter, we propose to revisit the key event system sciences, or systemics originated, in which the mathematician N. Wiener, professor at MIT, has been an emblematic actor¹. The summary that we propose does not claim to provide a chronological history of the facts as far as it could be restituted², which would in any case not be of great interest. It attempts, on the other hand, to recreate the dramatic climate of the era in which all available researchers find themselves caught up in the efforts of the Anglo-American war to fight against totalitarian regimes. Some do so with conviction and without scruples, such as J. von Neumann, others due to a moral duty, such as N. Wiener who was a pacifist and felt disgusted by violence. This is a period of intense interactions and exchanges between exceptional scientific personalities, often of European origin, where urgent action against totalitarian regimes is the common good. To make sense of this situation, it is necessary to imagine trying to put ourselves in the situation in order to judge the potential importance of the contributions made by each one, and to do this, it is essential to have a thorough understanding of the problem.

REMARK.– We have voluntarily ignored the contribution made by the biologist L. von Bertalanffy and his General System Theory, which today is only of historical interest³. Its influence in the field of engineering has been small, even zero, given the level of generality in which it was situated, and in any case, engineering was not his field of concern, contrary to N. Wiener, C. Shannon, J. von Neumann or A. Turing who “got their hands dirty” with machines and/or real systems.

1.1. The birth of systemics: the facts

The problem presented to N. Wiener⁴ and his group at the MIT⁵ was to study methods to increase the number of shots hitting the target and improve anti-aircraft defense, whose effectiveness could be measured by the ratio of the number of shots fired per downed airplane. Its overall objective was to improve the management of “shell” resources, inflict the greatest damage to the enemy (airplane pilots are a rare resource) and above all to save human lives.

At the time, when N. Wiener began his reflection, a summary of the technological environment would read as follows:

Gunners had perfect knowledge of ballistics and used firing charts to make adjustments to land-based cannons, for straight shots and for parabolic shots, over distances up to 20–30 km (correction required for the Coriolis force that is caused by the rotation of the Earth). The final targeting was carried out by observers close to the points of impact, who gave correction orders by telephone in 1914 and then by radio in 1939–1940. Shots were fired by the DCA (air defence) in a completely new environment onto moving targets – airplanes with speeds of up to 600 km/h, in other words, approximately 170 m/sec, at altitudes of 5–6,000 m. With shells of high initial speed, 800–1,000 m/sec, 5–6 seconds passed before the explosion capable of destroying the target was triggered, without taking into account the deceleration that slows down the initial speed.

REMARK.– In 10 seconds of freefall, a weighted object travels approximately 500 m and reaches a speed of 100 m/sec (360 km/h).

Combined with the speed of the airplane and with the initiatives taken by the pilot who can change course, we can easily understand that the “shot hitting the target” is something highly improbable. It is also the reason why it is necessary to “spray” a very wide area, with many cannons and a great quantity of munitions, to have a hope of making an impact; it is best to forget about efficiency.

The first radar (radio detection and ranging) equipment made their first appearance in England where they played an essential role and allowed the RAF to contain the attacks by the Luftwaffe. The radar allowed regrouping bomber formations to be “seen” far in advance, something that no observer would be able to detect simply by visual means, given the distances, with in situ information an impossibility. Thanks to radar, the command center for aerial operations understands what is probably going to happen and can therefore position its retaliation in advance with maximum efficiency for “attack” airplanes. In other words, radar provides all information about the trajectory followed by the target: position, speed and possible acceleration, and integrates all that to calculate the probable trajectories of bombers.

MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) had, at the time, one of the very first electronics laboratories for the study of servomechanisms – the Lincoln Laboratory. It later proved its worth in the construction of the SAGE system⁶, the first anti-aircraft defense system that can be described as modern. Servomechanisms are becoming essential devices for automatic adjustment of mobile mechanical parts in such a way as to control their movements as minutely as possible and absorb the shocks that generate destructive vibrations. This is fundamental to move the chassis of anti-aircraft guns and follow the trajectory of target airplanes. Servo-control of the movement requires precise measurements, in particular of the mass to be moved, in order to activate effectors with the right adjustment data and make cyclic corrections.

These developing automatisms led to all studies concerned with the transfer functions that have the fundamental properties of reincorporating as inputs some of the results that they produce as outputs. Knowledge of the function of transfer, obtained either empirically by experimentation; theoretically by calculation, or by combination of both of these, is therefore fundamental data for correct control of the mechanisms in question.

Using these mechanisms, amplification will be possible in a ratio of 1:100, 1:1000 or much more, depending on the principle of the control stick or of the rudder. They use a low energy signal (electric current, shearing a hydraulic circuit) which at a smaller scale closely reproduces a phenomenon of much greater energy, such as the movement of a gun carriage that may weigh several hundreds of kilos, or even a few metric tons for the turrets of marine artillery for which compensation of the erratic movements of the boat must be made. Obtaining “true” signals that are uncontaminated by random “noises” from the environment is therefore absolutely essential.

We also know how to “calculate” some of the fundamental mathematical operations of differential and integral calculus, in a rapid and unexpected manner. This is by using analogical calculators that are quite difficult to manipulate, such as those that equip the gunsights of B29 bombers – another celebrated airplane among those used during World War II. The first computers arrived a few years later, but it is certain that N. Wiener already had relatively precise intuition given the exceptional environment that he was surrounded by and to which he was one of the star contributors. He knew J. von Neumann well and had held discussions with him on many occasions⁷.

Rather than making long and fastidious calculations by hand, consulting tables and charts that are familiar to engineers, it was becoming simpler to carry out calculations directly with “programmed” functions in analogical form. And since in addition, we knew how to “clean” the signal that carried information about the background noise, it was possible to calculate the adjustment parameters required for the various appliances, on demand.

1.1.1. The idea of integration

N. Wiener’s stroke of genius is to have understood that by integrating all these technologies appropriately and by managing to ensure all those working on their development worked together, we would be able to create machines capable of imitating behaviors such as the gesture of a baseball player. A popular sport among students at Ivy League universities on the East Coast, baseball requires precisely intercepting ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• PART 1: The Foundations of Systemics
• PART 2: A World of Systems of Systems
• Conclusion
• List of Acronyms
• References
• Index
• End User License Agreement