ICSE 2010 SEAMS

Adaptive systems usually operationalize adaptation through a feedback loop, an architectural prosthesis that introduces monitoring, diagnosis and compensation functions to the system proper. We are interested in studying the requirements that lead to such feedback loop functionality. We introduce a class of requirements, called awareness requirements, which are best operationalized through a feedback loop instead of a collection of functions. These are characterized by the fact that they refer to other requirements, quality constraints or domain assumptions, and their success or failure. We then discuss elicitation, modeling, formalization and how to go from such requirements to feedback loops through a systematic process. In addition, we sketch a framework for monitoring, diagnosis and compensation founded on i* requirements models.