Systems Engineering is a relatively new branch of engineering and is a hybrid that integrate selected materials from the classical engineering programmes in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering as well as Computer Science. Systems Engineering was developed in response to the challenge faced by today’s scientific engineering community that require the ability to handle large or complex systems, and capability to skillfully subdivide such complex systems, processes or phenomena into meaningful and intelligible subcomponents and thereafter define, model and study the complex interactions of the organized whole. The discipline of Systems Engineering requires interdisciplinary skills and has the objective, like other engineering disciplines, of using advances in science and technology to empower both individuals and the society at large.

The present department of Systems Engineering evolved in year 2000 out of the teaching and research activities of the Engineering Analysis Unit (EAU) which was established early in the 1970/71 session as a sub-unit within the Civil Engineering Department for the study and development of Mathematical Techniques in the modeling and solution of engineering problems. It later became an autonomous service unit within the Faculty in 1975.

To be sure, Cybernetics and Artificial Intelligence has been the hallmark of the engineering profession in the last quarter of the twentieth century. With this development, there has been the evolution of the Systems Engineer who by and large specializes in engineering modeling and the general development of cybernetics and artificial intelligence concepts in the planning, design, operation and management of engineering activities especially in areas such as: Reactor devices and process, Energy systems, Engineering manufacturing processes, Operations, control and monitoring of electro-mechanical devices as well as telecommunication systems.