Dr. Hanumanthrao “Rao” Kannan, an assistant professor at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), has received a National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award to reimagine foundational aspects of systems engineering, an interdisciplinary field that involves designing, integrating and managing complex systems throughout their lifecycle. The researcher will act as Principal Investigator for the $500,000 initiative, which will run five years through Feb. 2030.
Kannan works in the Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering and Engineering Management at UAH, a part of The University of Alabama System. “I came to propose this project based on my observations and experiences in the Systems Engineering field, where I noticed that the discipline has traditionally relied heavily on heuristics – think ‘rules of thumb’ – informal best practices and experience-based guidelines rather than rigorous mathematical foundations,” the researcher explains.
“This lack of formalism creates significant challenges during problem formulation, which is the foundational first step where engineers define precisely what needs to be achieved, such as ‘collect samples from Jupiter's moon, Europa, and return to Earth without contamination.’ Without mathematical rigor, this crucial initial phase frequently suffers from inconsistencies and ambiguities, leading to cascading misunderstandings, expensive design revisions and substantial project delays in complex engineered systems like satellites, aircraft and launch vehicles.”
To bring new rigor to the field, Kannan’s CAREER award will focus on “how engineers formulate, analyze and validate engineering problem spaces by creating a new theoretical foundation that integrates rigorous logic-based formalisms with real-world engineering practice,” his proposal states. “Modern society depends on large-scale, complex engineering systems like communication satellites, aircraft, rockets and critical infrastructure. Developing these systems requires engineers to correctly understand and represent the ‘problem space,’ that is, the fundamental questions about what the system should do and how it should interact with its environment. If these early problem formulations are incomplete or inconsistent, costly design errors can arise down the road, affecting reliability, safety and mission success.”
The research aims to reduce costly rework, enhance system safety and improve performance by developing theoretical foundations for representing and reasoning about ‘engineering problem spaces.’
“My proposal focuses specifically on creating a comprehensive theoretical framework for problem formulation by integrating powerful formalisms, such as Modal Preference Logic, Systems Theory and Set Theory,” Kannan says.
Modal Preference Logic provides formal representation and reasoning about stakeholder needs, preferences, requirements and functions within complex engineering problems. Systems Theory offers the necessary framework to analyze complex systems through understanding their components, interactions and relationships, while Set Theory delivers the mathematical precision required to represent these elements formally.
“My vision is to fundamentally shift Systems Engineering from relying on heuristic-driven processes to embracing formal reasoning approaches, enabling engineers to evaluate the consistency, completeness and validity of their initial problem formulations, ultimately leading to more reliable, effective and successful engineering systems,” Kannan notes.
Together, these formalisms will establish a strong theoretical foundation that will be demonstrated through rigorous mathematical proofs and real-world case studies involving space systems at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center’s Advanced Concepts Office.
The CAREER initiative will also integrate these research insights into transformative teaching practices. Undergraduate and graduate students at UAH will be offered enhanced curricula featuring formal methods in systems engineering, theory-driven problem-solving coursework and hands-on involvement in space system projects in partnership with the Alabama Space Grant Consortium. Additionally, the effort includes outreach to K-12 learners, providing early exposure to engineering problem formulation techniques within space-related contexts, fostering long-term engagement and interest in STEM fields.
“My overarching goal is to develop robust theoretical foundations that enable systematic, formal analysis throughout the entire Systems Engineering process,” Kannan concludes. “Problem formulation emerged as the most critical area requiring this mathematical treatment because it serves as the cornerstone that fundamentally shapes every subsequent aspect of the system development lifecycle.”