Procedural abduction as enabler of smart operation of cyber-physical systems: Theoretical foundations

Some sort of `intellectual' mechanisms are needed for second generation cyber-physical systems (CPSs) to be self-aware and self-adaptive. This paper (i) proposes procedural abduction (PA) as one possible mechanism for enabling smart reasoning, (ii) introduces the fundamental concepts and the computational procedure, and (iii) argues for their practical utility. PA includes eight cluster of activities: (i) run-time extraction of signals and data by sensing, (ii) recognition of events, (iii) inferring about existing situations, (iv) building awareness about the performance of the system at attaining of objectives of operation/servicing, (v) devising alternative performance enhancement strategies, (vi) designing adaptation of the parts and the system as a whole, (vii) planning the implied interventions, and (viii) actuating effectors and controls. As a computational approach, PA facilitates believes-driven contemplation of the momentary performance of a system with regards to the most relevant objective of servicing and `best option'-based realization of adaptiveness. Computational realization of PA necessitates a combination of a large number of conventional and specific artificial intelligence algorithms. A fully fledged implementation of PA is underway, which will make verification and validation in the context of various smart CPSs possible.