Modularity and Composability

Many cyber-physical systems are actually systems of systems, compositions of diverse subsystems, typically developed by diverse teams, often from different organizations. Modularity is the problem of designing subsystems (modules) with well-defined interfaces that can be used in a variety of contexts. Composability is the ability to combine modules. A related concern is compositionality, which refers to the ability to understand a composite system by interstanding its components and how they are combined.