AS NZS ISO IEC IEEE-21841-2021 pdf download.Systems and software engineering — Taxonomy of systems of systems.
4  Concepts and application
4.1  Overview Taxonomies provide a means in many fields to classify and describe the relationships between the relevant elements being studied. The elements of a taxonomy, or taxa, form a partitioning or means of classification within that body of knowledge. Partitioning based on essential characteristics provides an abbreviated nomenclature to refer to a larger composite of characteristics, facilitating discussion about the partitions (taxa) without having to refer to each of the characteristics.
4.2  Importance of taxonomies to SoS In systems engineering (SE), the relevant pieces of the system of interest can be called subsystems, elements or components. In the context of SoS, the relevant pieces of the system of interest are, by definition, systems themselves. These are called constituent systems (CS) throughout this document. That is, an SoS consists of some number of CS, plus any inter-system infrastructure, facilities and processes necessary to enable the CS to integrate or interoperate. Relationships between CS affect the SoS. Using essential characteristics to partition the various types of SoS provides an abbreviated nomenclature for thinking about SoS. While Clause 5 elaborates one mature SoS taxonomy, Annex A provides a list of SoS less-mature taxonomies. Based on taxonomies, different approaches to the engineering of systems of systems are possible, improving the efficiency and effectiveness of SoSE.
NOTE 1  Taxonomies can have some overlap in their definition and need not be orthogonal to each other to be useful. An SoS can be considered as belonging to several taxonomies as long as its characteristics meet the definitions of the taxonomies.
NOTE 2  It is possible that inter-system infrastructure, facilities and processes do not meet the criteria for being systems in their own right. From the perspective of the SoS, these could be system elements (or SoS elements).
4.3  Use of SoS taxonomies There are many characteristics such as scale and scope, around which taxonomies can be derived. The SoS taxonomy in Clause 5 organizes the relevant aspects or essential characteristics of SoS, providing specific viewpoints that align with stakeholder concerns. This organization facilitates communications between the various stakeholders that are involved with activities like governance, engineering, operation and management of these SoS, and provides a reference for other related standards. The taxonomy in Clause 5 meets the following criteria.
— External references are publicly available.
— The taxa are stable with evidence of having been applied in multiple systems.AS NZS ISO IEC IEEE-21841 pdf download.