Integrating Model-Based Systems Engineering and Stakeholder-Driven Design Exploration: A Virtual Reality Approach for Early-Stage System Development

The integration of design, human factors engineering, and Systems Engineering (SE) is an important approach to improving the efficiency and consistency of technical development processes. In practice, these disciplines are often separated, creating challenges in the early alignment of system requirements and human factors. This study investigates the combination of Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) with a Stakeholder-Driven Design Exploration to enable a closer integration of these disciplines. The development of a blind spot assistance system for vehicles is considered as a use case. Various design elements of the system are visualized as part of a virtual reality (VR) design framework. Design decisions influenced by participants are captured in an SE model representing the solution architecture of the assistant system. This enables immediate adaptation of system requirements and design elements, making the development process more iterative and recursive. The methodology described here will accelerate product development cycles, particularly in the early concept phase. By directly considering stakeholder feedback in the system model, potential weaknesses can be identified at an earlier stage and optimizations can be made in the concept phase. The study shows how the combination of MBSE with an interactive, stakeholder-driven approach in VR will increase development reliability to streamline entire engineering process.