Interface specification for system-of-systems architectures

Establishing that a system-of-systems (SoS) architecture respects global SoS-level properties is complex. Recording explicit technical interfaces at the boundaries of constituent systems would facilitate this, but support for the description of such interfaces is limited in current widely-used architectural notations. This paper identifies research challenges that arise from using the combination of SysML and the formal notation VDM to describe the interface specifications recorded at the boundaries of the constituent systems. The approach is illustrated with a case study based on an emergency services SoS.