research-article

MAPE-K Formal Templates to Rigorously Design Behaviors for Self-Adaptive Systems

Authors:

Didac Gil De La Iglesia,

Danny WeynsAuthors Info & Claims

ACM Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems (TAAS), Volume 10, Issue 3

Article No.: 15, Pages 1 - 31

https://doi.org/10.1145/2724719

Published: 01 September 2015 Publication History

Abstract

Designing software systems that have to deal with dynamic operating conditions, such as changing availability of resources and faults that are difficult to predict, is complex. A promising approach to handle such dynamics is self-adaptation that can be realized by a MAPE-K feedback loop (Monitor-Analyze-Plan-Execute plus Knowledge). To provide evidence that the system goals are satisfied, given the changing conditions, the state of the art advocates the use of formal methods. However, little research has been done on consolidating design knowledge of self-adaptive systems. To support designers, this paper contributes with a set of formally specified MAPE-K templates that encode design expertise for a family of self-adaptive systems. The templates comprise: (1) behavior specification templates for modeling the different components of a MAPE-K feedback loop (based on networks of timed automata), and (2) property specification templates that support verification of the correctness of the adaptation behaviors (based on timed computation tree logic). To demonstrate the reusability of the formal templates, we performed four case studies in which final-year Masters students used the templates to design different self-adaptive systems.

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MAPE-K Formal Templates to Rigorously Design Behaviors for Self-Adaptive Systems

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Published In

cover image ACM Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems

ACM Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems Volume 10, Issue 3

October 2015

204 pages

ISSN:1556-4665

EISSN:1556-4703

DOI:10.1145/2819320

Editors:
Manish Parashar
Rutgers University, USA
,
Franco Zambonelli
University of Modena e Reggio Emilia, Italy

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Copyright © 2015 ACM.

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Publication History

Published: 01 September 2015

Accepted: 01 January 2015

Revised: 01 January 2015

Received: 01 April 2014

Published in TAAS Volume 10, Issue 3

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