On the engineering of systems of systems: Key challenges for the Requirements Engineering community

Software intensive systems of the future will be ultra large-scale systems of systems. Systems of Systems Engineering focuses on the interoperation of many independent, self-contained constituent systems to achieve a global need. The scale and complexity of systems of systems posses unique challenges for the Requirements Engineering community. Current requirements engineering techniques are inadequate in addressing these challenges and new concepts, methods, techniques, tools and processes are required. This paper identifies some immediate key challenges for the Requirements Engineering community that need to be scoped and describes some roadmapping activities that aim to address these challenges.