A self-adaptive system of systems architecture to enable its ad-hoc scalability: Unmanned Vehicle Fleet -- Mission Control Center Case study
This addresses scalability issues for unmanned vehicle fleets in dynamic mission environments, but appears incremental as it builds on existing SoS concepts with a specific application.
The research tackled the challenge of ad-hoc scalability in System of Systems, specifically for an Unmanned Vehicle Fleet, by proposing a self-adaptive system that dynamically adjusts fleet architecture based on performance criteria or operator decisions, with implementation verified through simulation using a multi-agent environment and rule management engine.
A System of Systems (SoS) comprises Constituent Systems (CSs) that interact to provide unique capabilities beyond any single CS. A key challenge in SoS is ad-hoc scalability, meaning the system size changes during operation by adding or removing CSs. This research focuses on an Unmanned Vehicle Fleet (UVF) as a practical SoS example, addressing uncertainties like mission changes, range extensions, and UV failures. The proposed solution involves a self-adaptive system that dynamically adjusts UVF architecture, allowing the Mission Control Center (MCC) to scale UVF size automatically based on performance criteria or manually by operator decision. A multi-agent environment and rule management engine were implemented to simulate and verify this approach.