Systems Enigeering - Concept Design

Multiple industries are considering the conversion of existing vehicles to autonomously operated vehicles. For this example, select an industry of your choice and develop a set of 10 operational requirements for this service capability. Limit the scope of these requirements while the vehicle is in transit. Do not consider loading or unloading as part of the scope.

For each operational requirement, include the requirements statement, the approach that you would need to develop the requirement, and the data that is needed for the analysis. An example is provided below. Requirements should be in the proper format, be quantified, and not contain design constraints (e.g. specify specific solutions), nor should it include cost. List 5-7 sources that are used for answering this question.

Requirement	Analysis Approach	Data Needed
The vehicle shall service an area no greater than 20 miles from the departure point	Time-distance calculations to determine the maximum service range	Locations of destinations, transportation network
The vehicle shall carry a maximum of 300 pounds of cargo	Analysis of maximum volume of cargo and associated weights based on potential vehicle volume	Weight and volume of typical cargo items, volume of vehicle interior tradespace, vehicle weight margins adjusted for fuel and chassis

Part II: Functional Analysis

Use the same autonomous vehicle transportation concept as previously described. Develop the operational architecture to explore the concepts of the autonomous transportation. (The goal is to explore the scope of the problem). Include:

A. Describe two concepts for an autonomous transportation and/or delivery that replaces manned systems. Each capability description should be one paragraph in length. No pictures or figures are necessary. These concepts should be different (e.g. they should not be two forms of remote cars)

B. For one of your concepts, prepare a context diagram that shows the relationship of the system to potential external entities (including organizations) with which it will likely interact. Show what types of information or products one might expect to be exchanged between the system and each external entity. You may have external entity to external entity connections as well, as applicable for your system concept. You should have 7-10 total entities in your diagram. Remember who you need to service for your mission. This should be a black box description of your system.

C. For the same concept in (B), develop a N² Diagram and derive 8-10 functions that your system will perform from the concept you developed in (B). This diagram should include the directionality of interfaces for both your system and the external entities, and be consistent with your product developed in (B).

Part III: Data Collection

Use the same autonomous vehicle transportation concept as previously described. Describe the data collection effort you would embark upon to identify and collect information needed to understand the customer base for your concept. (The goal is to help define the user community of the problem, in addition to defining the dependencies of your system that it requires from the operational environment (e.g. traffic signals, pedestrian traffic and safety, etc.). Include:

A brief description of your data sources (by organization name or function, not individual people)

What information you would need to collect from these sources listed in (A)

The collection method to be used to gather data from each source

The scope is 10-15 data entries (e.g. rows). Do not use the same collection method more than 3 times. Cite your sources with at least 7-10 different references cited.

Data Source	Information Requested	Collection Method
Department of Transportation	Pedestrian traffic statistics for downtown areas	Website query
Customer preferences on delivery method and customer notification	Method to meet customer and deliver requested goods	Structured interview

Part IV: Systems Architecting

Use the same autonomous vehicle transportation concept as previously described. You will need to develop a high-level set of architecture products to begin describing the overall concept for one of your system concepts.

Your organization has been asked to draft initial systems architecture for this new system.

Provide a functional block diagram for this system concept. This should include 8-10 top-level functions and all of the 1-way or 2-way interfaces labeled. The interfaces should describe the data flow between each function. Include any external functions / entities that may be involved in your system concept, and indicate / draw a boundary to show where your system concept is separate from the rest of the environment.

Provide a physical block diagram for this system concept. This should include 8-10 top-level components and all of the 1-way or 2-way interfaces labeled. The interfaces should describe the physical connection between each subsystem / component. Include any external entities that may be involved in your system concept, and indicate / draw a boundary to show where your system concept is separate from the rest of the environment.

Map the top-level functions of the functional block diagram to the physical block diagram. This may be done in a diagram, table, matrix or chartyour choice. If you have a row or column that has more than 3 functions or components allocated to it, you must decompose this and make sure your previous diagrams also reflect the same level of detail.