Interoperability of heterogeneous Systems of Systems: from requirements to a reference architecture

Interoperability stands as a critical hurdle in developing and overseeing distributed and collaborative systems. Thus, it becomes imperative to gain a deep comprehension of the primary obstacles hindering interoperability and the essential criteria that systems must satisfy to achieve it. In light of this objective, in the initial phase of this research, we conducted a survey questionnaire involving stakeholders and practitioners engaged in distributed and collaborative systems. This effort resulted in the identification of eight essential interoperability requirements, along with their corresponding challenges. Then, the second part of our study encompassed a critical review of the literature to assess the effectiveness of prevailing conceptual approaches and associated technologies in addressing the identified requirements. This analysis led to the identification of a set of components that promise to deliver the desired interoperability by addressing the requirements identified earlier. These elements subsequently form the foundation for the third part of our study, a reference architecture for interoperability-fostering frameworks that is proposed in this paper. The results of our research can significantly impact the software engineering of interoperable systems by introducing their fundamental requirements and the best practices to address them, but also by identifying the key elements of a framework facilitating interoperability in Systems of Systems

Enhancing Reproducibility and Trustability in Intelligent Asset Management Systems for the Railway Domain

The definition of an Intelligent Asset Management System (IAMS) requires integrating different digital artifacts to support the data-driven and proactive management of physical assets by companies. The implementation of such systems is often customly designed for a specific scenario and does not take into account best practices to enable the sharing and reuse of digital artifacts. Additionally, it is crucial to monitor the involvement of various stakeholders in the development of system functionalities that influence maintenance processes, enabling effective auditing activities. This paper focuses on addressing these challenges and presents the IAMS Integration Support Framework which was designed and demonstrated in the railway domain. The framework aims to enhance reproducibility and trustability in business scenarios within a multi-stakeholder environment

ST4RT – Semantic Transformations for Rail Transportation

The lack of interoperability between different transport modes is a barrier to the modal shift towards green modes of transport such as rail, on its own or as a backbone of an integrated mobility system, as well as the deployment of a Single European Transport Area. The ST4RT (Semantic Transformations for Rail Transportation) project aims at developing a demonstrator for a component that allows services relying on different standards to interoperate. This is achieved through the implementation of techniques for the automated transformation of messages across standards which are based on semantically-rich data. This paper presents some of the results achieved by the ST4RT project, and delineates its forthcoming contributions. ST4RT will contribute components to the Interoperability Framework which is at the core of the fourth Innovation Programme (IP4) of Shift2Rail