Policy-based self-management in embedded systems

This paper describes work towards the deployment of flexible self-management into realtime embedded systems. A challenging project DySCAS which focused specifically on the development of a dynamic, adaptive automotive middleware is described. The self-management and context-awareness requirements of the middleware have been identified through the refinement of a wide-ranging set of Use cases, a sample of which are presented. The embedded and real-time nature of the target system brings the constraints that dynamic adaptation capabilities must not require changes to the deployed executable code, adaptation decisions must have low latency, and because the target platforms are resource-constrained the self-management mechanism must have low resource requirements (especially in terms of processing and memory). The incorporation of policy-based self-management in this situation satisfies all of these requirements and in addition yields a highly flexible system that can be tailored for specific deployment-systems. The policy logic is independent of the deployed code, can be loaded at run-time and easily replaced or changed subsequently to cater for user customisation or changes in application requirements. The architecture of a designed-for-purpose powerful yet lightweight AGILE_Lite policy library is described. Additionally, a suitable evaluation platform, supporting the whole life-cycle of feasibility analysis, concept evaluation, development, rigorous testing and behavioural validation has been devised and is described