A Conceptual Framework for Safe Reconfiguration in Open System of Systems

Software-intensive systems in application domains like autonomous agriculture, avionics and healthcare need to be more and more adaptive. Dynamic integration of components and a subsequent reconfiguration at runtime results in changed functional and non-functional properties of the system. Taking into consideration that these systems often operate in safety-critical environment, reconfiguration apropos of safety becomes a crucial concern. To this end, we introduce a conceptual framework that aids in safe reconfiguration of an open system-of-system, by the means of systematic monitoring and evaluation of the system and its components at runtime. We employ an example from autonomous agricultural domain to illustrate our concept and conclude this paper with discussing our planned future work.