Bringing solutions to light through systems engineering

Systems Engineering (SE) has been defined as “an interdisciplinary approach and means to enable the realization of successful systems”. Today´s rapidly developing technology has provided solutions in all sectors of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) technical groups (e.g. aerospace, electronics, medical, transportation) which affect every aspect of our lives. To demonstrate that SE can lay a solid foundation for new projects to solve today´s most difficult problems, a group IEEE engineers from the Aerospace and Electronic Systems Society (AESS) met in San Francisco, CA on August 18, 2011, just before IEEE Sections Congress, to assess proposed solutions for 30 important topics. All material from the AESS Chapter Summit is posted at: http://www.ieee-aess.org/documents/ membership/chapter-activities/2011-chapter-summit. In this paper, we select one topic, “Solving the Space Debris Problem”, to demonstrate the SE approach. The end goal formulates an economic proposal to apply $5B towards technical solutions and assess the projected effects of this expenditure. Following common practice for tracking space debris, modeling shows that there is a need to upgrade facilities to focus on the debris detection for satellite safety and satellite-debris collision avoidance. There are alternatives on how to improve capabilities such as: build another distributed set of sensors for increased spatial/temporal detection, improve visualizations and displays for operator coordination and analysis, upgrade tracking and sensor management algorithms to extend continuous monitoring, and improve current system exploitation to discern small objects. We recommend a balanced approach across these areas with a focus on algorithm development (e.g., target exploitation) with the highest payoff at the least cost and risk.