Holistic Systems Engineering: Cognitive Hierarchy, Rf Receiver Technology, and Environment

From the very beginning of technological development, humans have had the goal to build systems that can capture the cognitive abilities of nature. The ability to process control and communications information on the battlefield is important. Such control can be offered in the form of a software-defined radio (SDR) based on cognitive radio technology. Cognitive radio technology could theoretically interoperate amongst incompatible communication systems used by friendly and coalition forces. According to Dr. Joseph Mitola, the cognitive radio vision is as follows: a smart radio that could switch spectrum on the fly. Put another way, a cognitive radio is a radio function that would be capable of switching from a crowded part of the radio frequency spectrum to a radio frequency region that is more sparsely populated but can still receive the original signals of interest. Cognitive radio technology and cognitive engineering is based upon the human cognitive hierarchy process, however, for its practicable realization to occur, the authors argue a holistic systems engineering approach that appears to include physical, informational, cognitive, social domain along with machine-, application-, and human-centered sub-domain combat conditions and thermal management systems engineering concepts must, from the beginning, be considered