Systems engineering and Related Topics

The InSight lander with solar panels deployed in a cleanroom

Engineering

Use of scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings.

The steam engine, the major driver in the Industrial Revolution, underscores the importance of engineering in modern history. This beam engine is on display in the Technical University of Madrid.

Relief map of the Citadel of Lille, designed in 1668 by Vauban, the foremost military engineer of his age.

The Ancient Romans built aqueducts to bring a steady supply of clean and fresh water to cities and towns in the empire.

A water-powered mine hoist used for raising ore, ca. 1556

The application of the steam engine allowed coke to be substituted for charcoal in iron making, lowering the cost of iron, which provided engineers with a new material for building bridges. This bridge was made of cast iron, which was soon displaced by less brittle wrought iron as a structural material

The solar furnace at Odeillo in the Pyrénées-Orientales in France can reach temperatures up to 3500 C

Design of a turbine requires collaboration of engineers from many fields, as the system involves mechanical, electro-magnetic and chemical processes. The blades, rotor and stator as well as the steam cycle all need to be carefully designed and optimized.

A drawing for a booster engine for steam locomotives. Engineering is applied to design, with emphasis on function and the utilization of mathematics and science.

A computer simulation of high velocity air flow around a Space Shuttle orbiter during re-entry. Solutions to the flow require modelling of the combined effects of fluid flow and the heat equations.

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Robotic Kismet can produce a range of facial expressions.

Radar, GPS, lidar, ... are all combined to provide proper navigation and obstacle avoidance (vehicle developed for 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge)

Engineers, scientists and technicians at work on target positioner inside National Ignition Facility (NIF) target chamber

The International Space Station is used to conduct science experiments in space

Genetically engineered mice expressing green fluorescent protein, which glows green under blue light. The central mouse is wild-type.

Leonardo da Vinci, seen here in a self-portrait, has been described as the epitome of the artist/engineer. He is also known for his studies on human anatomy and physiology.

Other engineering fields are manufacturing engineering, acoustical engineering, corrosion engineering, instrumentation and control, aerospace, automotive, computer, electronic, information engineering, petroleum, environmental, systems, audio, software, architectural, agricultural, biosystems, biomedical, geological, textile, industrial, materials, and nuclear engineering.

The Ford Motor Company's factory at Willow Run utilised Production Engineering principles to achieve record mass production of the B-24 Liberator military aircraft during World War II.

Manufacturing engineering

Branch of professional engineering that shares many common concepts and ideas with other fields of engineering such as mechanical, chemical, electrical, and industrial engineering.

A set of six-axis robots used for welding.

KUKA industrial robots being used at a bakery for food production

Mohr's circle, a common tool to study stresses in a mechanical element

Training FMS with learning robot SCORBOT-ER 4u, workbench CNC mill and CNC lathe

Close-up view of a friction stir weld tack tool

Manufacturing engineering is considered to be a subdiscipline of industrial engineering/systems engineering and has very strong overlaps with mechanical engineering.

System

Group of interacting or interrelated elements that act according to a set of rules to form a unified whole.

Important distinctions have also been made between hard systems – technical in nature and amenable to methods such as systems engineering, operations research, and quantitative systems analysis – and soft systems that involve people and organisations, commonly associated with concepts developed by Peter Checkland and Brian Wilson through Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) involving methods such as action research and emphasis of participatory designs.

Industrial engineering

Engineering profession that is concerned with the optimization of complex processes, systems, or organizations by developing, improving and implementing integrated systems of people, money, knowledge, information and equipment.

Watt's steam engine (Technical University of Madrid)

Depending on the sub-specialties involved, industrial engineering may also overlap with, operations research, systems engineering, manufacturing engineering, production engineering, supply chain engineering, management science, management engineering, financial engineering, ergonomics or human factors engineering, safety engineering, logistics engineering or others, depending on the viewpoint or motives of the user.

Electrical engineering

Engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism.

The discoveries of Michael Faraday formed the foundation of electric motor technology.

Guglielmo Marconi, known for his pioneering work on long-distance radio transmission

A replica of the first working transistor, a point-contact transistor

Metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET), the basic building block of modern electronics

Satellite dishes are a crucial component in the analysis of satellite information.

Control systems play a critical role in spaceflight.

A Bayer filter on a CCD requires signal processing to get a red, green, and blue value at each pixel.

Flight instruments provide pilots with the tools to control aircraft analytically.

Supercomputers are used in fields as diverse as computational biology and geographic information systems.

An example circuit diagram, which is useful in circuit design and troubleshooting.

Belgian electrical engineers inspecting the rotor of a 40,000 kilowatt turbine of the General Electric Company in New York City

The IEEE corporate office is on the 17th floor of 3 Park Avenue in New York City

Satellite communications is typical of what electrical engineers work on.

A laser bouncing down an acrylic rod, illustrating the total internal reflection of light in a multi-mode optical fiber.

Radome at the Misawa Air Base Misawa Security Operations Center, Misawa, Japan

Electrical engineering is now divided into a wide range of different fields, including computer engineering, systems engineering, power engineering, telecommunications, radio-frequency engineering, signal processing, instrumentation, photovoltaic cells, electronics, and optics and photonics.

Engineering management

Application of the practice of management to the practice of engineering.

Systems engineering is an interdisciplinary field of engineering and engineering management that focuses on how to design and manage complex systems over their life cycles.

Mechatronics

Mechatronics, also called mechatronics engineering, is an interdisciplinary branch of engineering that focuses on the integration of mechanical, electronic and electrical engineering systems, and also includes a combination of robotics, electronics, computer science, telecommunications, systems, control, and product engineering.