Meeting Speaker Mark Blackburn: Transforming Systems Engineering through a Holistic Approach to Model-Centric Systems Engineering
GlobalMeetSeven
ATA, 1300 Britt Street, SE, Albuquerque, NM
Abstract. This presentation discusses perspectives from several Systems Engineering Research Center (SERC) projects addressing research challenges and opportunities for leveraging model-centric engineering (MCE) sponsored by the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) and the United States (US) Army RDECOM-ARDEC. Model-centric engineering can be characterized as an overarching digital engineering approach that integrates different model types with simulations, surrogates, systems and components at different levels of abstraction and fidelity across disciplines throughout the lifecycle. Industry is trending towards more integration of computational capabilities, models, software, hardware, platforms, and humans-in-the-loop. The integrated perspectives provide cross-domain views for rapid system level analysis allowing engineers from various disciplines using dynamic models and surrogates to support continuous and often virtual verification and validation for tradespace decisions in the face of changing mission needs. This presentation provides information summarizing this year’s research, and additional targeted organizational discussions with more details on the evidence to address the research question, the concept of a “future” state and a new operational model between Government and Industry.
Bio: Mark R. Blackburn, Ph.D. is a Research Associate Professor with Stevens Institute of Technology and principal at KnowledgeBytes. Dr. Blackburn’s research focuses on methods, models, and automated tools for reasoning about complex systems of systems. He is the Principal Investigator (PI) on several System Engineering Research Center research tasks for both NAVAIR and US. Army ARDEC on Systems Engineering Transformation through Model-Centric Engineering. He has also been Principal on a FAA NextGen project and has received research funding from the National Science Foundation. He develops and teaches a course on Systems Engineering of Cyber Physical Systems. Prior to joining Stevens, Dr. Blackburn worked in industry for more than 25 years. He has been the Principal Investigator to the National Institute of Standards and Technology on projects dating back to 2000 involving model-based tools and methods for verification and validation of security-related products and applications. Dr. Blackburn holds a Ph.D. from George Mason University, a M.S. in Mathematics (emphasis in C.S.) from Florida Atlantic University, and a B.S. in Mathematics (C.S. option) from Arizona State University.