This work aims to introduce the systems engineering approach to the development of a virtual laboratory network. A systems engineering team has been built and the process started with a stakeholder analysis. A stakeholder model was created to visualize the stakeholder structure of the project. After understanding the relevance of each stakeholder, the systems engineering team proceeded with stakeholder interviews to understand the needs, goals, and objectives of the stakeholders and derive the technical requirements of the virtual laboratory network. Using these requirements, ideas were developed for different system architecture options, these system designs were modeled, and the options were analyzed. The focus lied on the strengths and weaknesses of centralized and decentralized communication architectures as well as the two main transport layer communication protocols. The iteration of possible system designs led to the final approach, which combines the benefits of different philosophies. This approach uses two different communication layers for different purposes. A "Data storage and control layer" allows a centralized control of the test and reliable data storage of the whole experiment with the underlying transport layer protocol Transmission Control Protocol (TCP). Another "Real-Time Application Layer" uses User Datagram Protocol (UDP) as the underlying communication protocol and allows the systems to communicate peer-to-peer with real-time capable network characteristics. The increased efficiency of the development process with the systems engineering approach is also emphasized.     «

This work aims to introduce the systems engineering approach to the development of a virtual laboratory network. A systems engineering team has been built and the process started with a stakeholder analysis. A stakeholder model was created to visualize the stakeholder structure of the project. After understanding the relevance of each stakeholder, the systems engineering team proceeded with stakeholder interviews to understand the needs, goals, and objectives of the stakeholders and derive the t...     »