Using Design Questions to Analyze System Adaptation Potential

The problem of designing a self-adaptive system (SAS) is often approached from the perspective of adding an adaptive control loop to a technology or system that is not explicitly adaptive on its own. Although the control loop is a separate component, its design must be compatible with the features of the base system. In practice, the two designs can be interdependent. The objective of this paper is to define a set of design questions that can be used to pinpoint important attributes in a base system in terms of how it constrains or enables adaptation capabilities and influences the design of an adaptive control loop. To allow for meaningful analysis across a variety of problem domains, the design questions are specific but require open-ended, qualitative responses. Examples are given of how these design questions can be used to analyze technologies that have appeared in SAS literature.