Flow-based systems modelling: application in airport system description

With increasing scale and complexity of emerging networked applications, the concept of system of systems has emerged recently as a new way to address complex problems in a systematic manner. A key problem in this context is lack of a unifying framework for development and management of these systems. To avoid potential failures in building these systems, new methods, models, and techniques have been proposed. A more methodological approach is the model-based process. Systems modelling language (SysML) was created to implement this process; nevertheless, an underlying tool for expressing the unified totality of a system's processes and concepts is lacking. This paper proposes a new approach to a basic framework in this domain. As a case study, this paper applies a flow-based methodology to model physical actualisation of mechanics, electronics, information, actions, and control at an international airport. The resultant conceptual specification demonstrates that the methodology is capable of modelling various types of processes.