A conceptual model for analyzing information quality in System-of-Systems

A System-of-Systems (SoS) is an integration of a finite number of Constituent Systems (CSs), which are networked together for achieving a certain higher goal. Therefore, integration is the key viability of any SoS. Although the integration of CSs can be achieved by the exchange of information, no existing work has considered the quality of such information. Without considering Information Quality (IQ), a CS may depend on inaccurate, incomplete, inconsistent, invalid, and/or untrustworthy information, which might lead to its failure, and in turn to catastrophic incidents in the case of critical SoS. The main objective of the paper is proposing a novel conceptual model that provides the required concepts for analyzing for SoS. We illustrate the utility of the model with an example concerning the Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) domain.