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Self-Adaptation of Software Using Automatically Generated Control-Theoretical Solutions

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Abstract

Control theory has contributed a set of foundational techniques to handle “change” at runtime in software applications. These techniques however have fundamental limitations as well: (i) they require the development and understanding of mathematical models; (ii) synthesizing solutions is often done on a per-problem basis, discouraging flexibility and generality. Software engineering, as a discipline, has always aimed at finding reusable and modular solutions. The combination of the desire to apply formally grounded control-theoretical principles and reuse existing solutions has motivated research on the topic of automatically generated control solutions. This research aims at designing control strategies in an automated way from data that qualifies the given problem at hand. This chapter provides an overview of the research topic of automatically generated control-theoretical solutions, explaining the key research contributions and paving the way for future research.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In this chapter, we restrict ourselves to continuous- and discrete-time control [8, 54]. Discrete event systems are out of our scope.

  2. 2.

    Other model synthesis techniques can be used to produce system model. But historically, automated approaches used system identification as it is fast and approximates software well enough for controllers to work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Linnaeus University, Växjö, Sweden

    Stepan Shevtsov & Danny Weyns

  2. KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

    Stepan Shevtsov & Danny Weyns

  3. Lund University, Lund, Sweden

    Martina Maggio

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  1. Stepan Shevtsov
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  2. Danny Weyns
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Correspondence to Stepan Shevtsov .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK

    Yijun Yu

  2. The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK

    Arosha Bandara

  3. National Institute of Informatics, Tokyo, Japan

    Shinichi Honiden

  4. National Institute of Informatics, Tokyo, Japan

    Zhenjiang Hu

  5. Hosei University , Tokyo, Japan

    Tetsuo Tamai

  6. University of Victoria , Victoria, BC, Canada

    Hausi Muller

  7. University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

    John Mylopoulos

  8. The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK

    Bashar Nuseibeh

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Shevtsov, S., Weyns, D., Maggio, M. (2019). Self-Adaptation of Software Using Automatically Generated Control-Theoretical Solutions. In: Yu, Y., et al. Engineering Adaptive Software Systems. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-2185-6_2

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