The systems engineering (SE) design process has been playing a crucial role in the development of new systems. The SE process can be modeled to consist of the
requirements analysis, the functional analysis, the synthesis and the optimization
subproces...
The systems engineering (SE) design process has been playing a crucial role in the development of new systems. The SE process can be modeled to consist of the
requirements analysis, the functional analysis, the synthesis and the optimization
subprocesses. It is noted that this SE process is applied repeatedly at each layer of the system's hierarchy as well as at each stage of the system life cycle.
Through the repetition the risks and uncertainty possibly incurred in the system development can gradually be decreased.
A design methodology could change for the systems development if similar systems are already physically implemented and in operation.
A good candidate for the situation would be the systems design approach based on the reverse engineering and re-engineering design process.
In this case the use of the design information extracted from the reverse engineering of the existing system is expected to decrease the effort and risks for the new system development. Here, the method of extracting or generalizing the low level design information of the system in operation to make up the higher level information is called reverse engineering.
In this dissertation, we are particularly interested in the use of reverse engineering in the design method of the combined reverse engineering and re-engineering process.
The analysis of the previous literature on the reverse engineering indicated that the concept of the reverse engineering has been studied in a variety of engineering fields.
In particular, a great deal of effort has been made in the field of software engineering in which increased attention has been noticed due to the direct relationship between the reverse engineering the crucial hacking wars in the IT systems. On the other hand, the research activities in SE area appear to be insufficient. The major results on the reverse engineering process from the SE point of view turned out to be simply at a conceptual level and thus it seems not easy to verify and apply the process in practice.
Although the process for the new system development requires a variety of SE artifacts, it is not easy to achieve the goal with the reverse engineering process reported so far.
The objectives of the dissertation is three-fold. First of all, the improvement on the reverse engineering process is studied. Secondly, In order to foster the understanding
and the use of the improved process, the process is graphically modeled.
Finally, to demonstrate the applicability and practical value of the developed process, its application is carried out for a real example using the computer-aided SE tool (CASE), Core.
As for the methods of approach, we first set up the requirements a 'complete' reverse engineering process should satisfy to improve the existing results.
Also, we introduce a preprocessing step prior to develop the system functional requirements. In addition,
modeling and implementation of the developed process using the CASE tool is considered to verify it and to evaluate its applicability in practice.
The results of research obtained following the aforementioned objectives and methods are as follows. The developed reverse engineering process shows the improvement in terms of the following factors.
The inputs and outputs of each subprocess were clearly specified.
The overall reverse engineering process has been decomposed to the point where it can be.
The relationship among the identified subprocesses has been clearly specified both horizontally and vertically.
The control flow of all the subprocesses has been correctly determined.
Next the developed process has been modeled using the graphic models IDEF0 and Enhanced Functional Flow Block Diagram (eFFBD).
In this paper, we defined improved reverse engineering process that proposed to this study in terms of input, output, control, and mechanisms according to the passage of time using IDEF0, eFFBD (Enhanced Functional Flow Block Diagram) of CORE that is commercial tool for supporting systems engineering. Also we defined SE artifact based on system hierarchy's viewpoint by breaking down results of each phase into requirements structure, functional structure, physical structure through reverse engineering analysis and build items of each artifact through MIL-STD-961D.
In order to verify this paper, we selected assessment methods of the systems engineering capability model (SECM). As a result, a level of maturity of this paper can be determined as above level 1. In addition, 2 level and 3 level show attainment close to 70%. We can judge that the improved reverse engineering process that proposed to this paper have potentially the ability to be able to support 2 level and 3 level.
In order to confirm the feasibility of the improved reverse engineering process that proposed to this paper, we were applied to each step of reverse engineering process targeting OPO laser range finder system. And then SE output of each step is developed.
Also we proposed how to take advantage of laser range finder development that the feature was added in by applying the results of analysis of reverse engineering. The improved reverse engineering process that proposed to this paper can be applied to the development of the SE artifacts through working physical system and will contribute to reduce the difference of reverse engineering design output according the ability of engineers as detail each phase of the reverse engineering in terms of systems engineering and raise the engineering's maturity level of the concept design phase.