ABSTRACT
The purpose of this chapter was to define the main features that distinguish Cognitive Systems Engineering from other systems engineering. The first section is devoted to the discussion of basics of Cognitive Science and Cognitive Systems, and in particular its interdisciplinary nature and relationships between cognitive systems and major classes of systems. This was followed by a brief analysis of cognitive processes of knowledge acquiring in living systems as a chain consisting of basic, meta, and higher cognitive functions. Section 3 provides processes of knowledge acquiring in engineered systems which was described and analysed based on a modified knowledge pyramid. In addition, a simplified model of knowledge acquisition process in engineering systems was proposed. The main part of the chapter is Section 4, which defines the Cognitive Systems Engineering on the basis of imperfect knowledge acquisition and management concept. The model of the knowledge extraction process as a chain of actions that must be performed to obtain knowledge from raw data is proposed. The chapter concludes by showing the relationship of Cognitive Systems Engineering to other areas of systems engineering and proposing a structural model for describing cognitive engineered systems.
