Structural Complexity Quantification for Engineered Complex Systems and Implications on System Architecture and Design
Name
V03AT03A044-DETC2013-12013.pdf
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1.02 MB
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Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
5fe8f9d075a29689a3b33b512d48222a
Author(s)
Sinha, Kaushik
de Weck, Olivier L
Date Issued
August 2013
Journal
Proceedings of the ASME 2013 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference IDETC/CIE 2013
Publisher
American Society of Mechanical Engineers
Citation
Sinha, Kaushik, and Olivier L. de Weck. “Structural Complexity Quantification for Engineered Complex Systems and Implications on System Architecture and Design.” Proceedings of the ASME 2013 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference IDETC/CIE 2013, 40-7 August, 2013, Portland, Oregon, ASME, 2013.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
The complexity of today's highly engineered products is rooted in the interwoven architecture defined by its components and their interactions. Quantitative assessment of structural complexity is mandatory for characterization of engineered complex systems. In this paper, we develop a quantitative measure for structural complexity and illustrate its application to a real-world, complex engineered system. It is observed that low topological complexity implies centralized architecture and it increases as we march towards highly distributed architectures. We posit that the development cost increases super-linearly with structural complexity. Empirical evidences from literature and preliminary results from simple experiments strengthen our hypothesis. Preliminary experiments show that the effort increases super-linearly with increasing structural complexity (i.e., exponent, b = 1.69). We further introduce complicatedness as an observer-dependent property that links structural complexity to system level observables like the development cost. We further discuss distribution of complexity across the system architecture and its strategic implications for system development efforts. © 2013 by ASME
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Institute for Data, Systems, and Society
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1115/DETC2013-12013
