Goal-oriented Holonics for Complex System (Self-)Integration: Concepts and Case Studies
Résumé
System integration from sub-systems has always
been a major engineering problem, which is progressively exacerbated
by (1) sub-systems becoming more diverse, self-* and
autonomous (2) systems operating in open environments, with
third-party sub-systems joining and leaving unpredictably, (3)
system (self-)integration being an ongoing process, increasingly
needed at runtime. The fact that this problem occurs more
and more often, as systems are built increasingly by composing
existing sub-systems, requires rigorous, reusable integration
solutions to replace ad-hoc approaches. In a complex world of
uncertainty and change the new system integration paradigm
must feature two main characteristics: support for a systemof-
systems approach to manage complexity, and support for
a high-level relation between sub-systems to manage diversity,
uncertainty and dynamics. We propose a conceptual modelling
solution combining holonic principles with goal-based relations.
We highlight the key properties of holonic designs that support
a systems-of-systems approach. We then specify the high-level
relations between holonic sub-systems as goal-oriented requests
and replies. Argumentation is grounded via concrete examples
from existing complex systems. The proposed paradigm paves
the way for future methodologies and tools for designing the
next generation of socio-technical and cyber-physical systems.