3.1.   INTRODUCTION

Over the last decade or so, the area of information technology has sustained
a remarkable level of growth. Processor speed, memory capacity, network
bandwidth, and other metrics of progress show few signs of relenting from
their exponential trends. To those of us whose first exposure to computing
was in the days of mainframe time-sharing, punch cards, and 300-baud
modems, the IT revolution has been personally experienced. Recalling these
once-ubiquitous artifacts helps place the downturn the IT sector is facing at
the time of this writing in its proper context!

Yet even as the virtual world takes over more and more aspects of our
lives and work, we are continually reminded of its limitations. We, and the
‘‘real world’’ around us, are not made of bits and bytes, but of matter and
energy. The physical world, unlike a virtual one, isn’t a malleable entity.
Video games - to note an application domain that has been one of the key
drivers for the development of faster processors - are free to ignore the laws
of physics, but building real systems that reliably operate in the real world
transcends software engineering. Ultimately, the engineering and scientific
research communities need to address difficult problems related to national
defense, antiterrorism, the environment, critical infrastructures, and other
domains - and these problems cannot be simulated away.

In the context of such technological endeavors, software and information
technology should be seen not as an end in itself but as an enabling force.
That the computing revolution is relevant to progress in engineering systems
goes without saying - it is hardly controversial to assert that advances in
computer hardware and software constitute the largest potential enabler of
such progress in recent times. To realize this potential, we must seek multi-
disciplinary syntheses that integrate developments from a variety of fields.

To exemplify these general remarks, consider the application discussed in
the preceding chapter. For national defense, uninhabited aerial vehicles
(UAVs) are seen as a warfighting solution that will minimize risk to the
nation’s military personnel. The first UAVs may have flown in World War I,
but it is only now that they are seriously being contemplated as an effective
alternative to piloted aircraft. The issue has always been the automation and
control required for high-performance missions, and the belief until recently
has been that the complexity of the decision and control process performed
by a human pilot will defeat any attempt toward a software-based computational
substitute.