Challenges in providing sustainable analytic of system of systems with long life time

Embedded systems are today often self-sufficient systems with limited communication. However, this traditional view of an embedded system is changing rapidly. Embedded systems are nowadays evolving, e.g., an evolution pushed by the increased functional gain introduced with the concept of System of Systems (SoS) that is connecting multiple subsystems to achieve a combined functionality and/or information of a higher value. In such a SoS the subsystems will have to serve a dual purpose in a) the initial purpose that the subsystem was originally designed and deployed for, e.g., control and protection of the physical assets of a critical infrastructure system that could be up and running for 30-40 years, and b) at the same time provide information to a higher-level system for a potential future increase of system functionality as technology matures and/or new opportunities are provided by, e.g., greater analytics capabilities. In this paper, within the context of a “dual purpose use” of a) and b), we bring up three central challenges related to i) information gathering, ii) life-cycle management, and iii) data governance, and we propose directions for solutions to these challenges that need to be evaluated already at design time.