Service Virtualization for Self-Adaptation in Mobile Cyber-Physical Systems

Mobile Cyber-Physical Systems (mCPS) consist of cooperating units that often operate in an unpredictably changing environment. Thus, they need to adapt quickly to varying spatial and temporal conditions during operation, e.g., to avoid collisions. The control software of the mobile units has to reflect this complex dynamics, and traditional device-level adaptation models are usually not efficient enough to engineer them smoothly. We address this challenge by proposing a Virtual Adaptation Services Framework (VASF). It provides a virtualized application-level view to adaptation requirements, enabling adaptation coordination between cooperative mCPS devices. In particular, VASF allows us to describe the contextual conditions of mCPS by abstract rules that are analyzed at runtime by the tool-set BeSpaceD. Based on this analysis, the control systems of the involved mCPS units are automatically reconfigured using the OSGi framework. The approach is demonstrated with DiddyBorg robots that are operated by Raspberry Pi boards.