Priority-Awareness of Non-Functional Requirements under Uncertainty

A Self-adaptive system (SAS) is required to continuously satisfy its requirements at runtime under environmental uncertainty. As the run-time context changes, the system may need to re-conFigure itself, and since resources are finite this may require trade-offs between the SAS's non-functional requirements (NFRs). A number of runtime modelling techniques have been developed for resolution of uncertainty in SASs. However, current techniques lack the explicit runtime representation of NFR priorities, leading to the risk that adaptations may fail to respect the NFRs' priorities. In order to address this problem, my research will focus on the explicit representation and a priori elicitation of distinct NFRs' priorities to support autonomous NFR tradeoff decisions. This paper gives an overview of the research area by identifying gaps in existing state of the art techniques. The paper also provides a description of the prospective approaches for solving the problem along with current progress made and next steps.