Ontology-based systems engineering: A state-of-the-art review

In recent years ontology-based systems engineering has grown significantly. Its raison d'etre is to use ontologies to improve the systems engineering body of knowledge. Specifically, ontologies act as an enabler of good knowledge management as they focus on establishing well-defined domain concepts in terms of terminologies, definitions, and relationships. In addition, the use of formal semantics is essential for explicit, sharable, and reusable knowledge representation. However, little research exists that evaluates the impact and real benefits of ontologies for systems engineering. A thorough review of the state of the art of ontology-based systems engineering will contribute to the future development of the discipline. Therefore, the primary objective of this paper is to draw a clear roadmap of how ontologies support systems engineering and to determine what extent they have been applied in this domain. This review contributes to a holistic examination of the primary studies relevant to the topic of ontology-based systems engineering, spanning nearly two decades. The findings provide an integrated and comprehensive understanding of and shed new light on (1) the systems engineering knowledge areas supported by ontologies; (2) the contribution that ontologies make to systems engineering problems; (3) the existing ontologies that are created to support systems engineering; and (4) the techniques adopted from an ontology engineering perspective. It assesses the influence of ontologies in systems engineering knowledge areas, expounding and highlighting the effects of ontologies. All in all, it presents a comprehensive summary of the state of the art of ontology-based systems engineering, as well as illuminating a roadmap for future directions.