The challenge of building process-control software

Process control is explained, and it is shown why trying to build process-control software using the same approaches developed and used for data-processing and information-system software will lead to failure. Rather than offering solutions to the problems inherent in developing process-control software, the author identifies the aspects of the problem on which to focus attention and the tasks that are ripe for solution. In particular, modeling and analysis, human-computer interaction, and risk evaluation are discussed     

A distributed architecture for supervision of autonomous multi-robot missions

Realizing long-term autonomous missions involving teams of heterogeneous robots is a challenge. It requires mechanisms to make robots react to disturbances or failures that will arise during the mission, while trying to successfully achieve the mission in cooperation. This paper presents HiDDeN, a distributed deliberative architecture that manages the execution of a hierarchical plan. This plan has initially been computed offline, ensuring some military operational constraints of the mission. Each robot’s supervisor then executes its own part of the plan, and reacts to failures using a hierarchical repair approach. This hierarchical repair has been designed with the sake of ensuring operational constraints, while reducing the need of communication between robots, as communication may be intermittent or even nonexistent when the robots operate in completely separate environments. HiDDeN’s robustness and scalability is evaluated with simulations. Experiments with an autonomous helicopter and an autonomous underwater vehicle have been realized and are presented as the defining point of our contribution.     

Evaluation of software testing metrics for NASA's Mission Control Center

Software metrics are used to evaluate the software developmentprocess and the quality of the resultingproduct. We used five metrics during the testing phase of the Shuttle Mission Control Center (MCC) Upgrade (MCCU) at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Johnson Space Center. All but one metric provided useful information. Based on our experience we recommend using metrics during the test phase of software development and propose additional candidate metrics for further study.     

Verified software: a grand challenge

Given the right computer-based tools, the use of formal methods could become widespread and transform software engineering. The computer science community recently committed itself to making verified software a reality within the next 15 to 20 years when representatives met in Zurich in 2005 to discuss an international grand challenge on verification.     

Evolutionary testing of autonomous software agents

A system built in terms of autonomous software agents may require even greater correctness assurance than one that is merely reacting to the immediate control of its users. Agents make substantial decisions for themselves, so thorough testing is an important consideration. However, autonomy also makes testing harder; by their nature, autonomous agents may react in different ways to the same inputs over time, because, for instance they have changeable goals and knowledge. For this reason, we argue that testing of autonomous agents requires a procedure that caters for a wide range of test case contexts, and that can search for the most demanding of these test cases, even when they are not apparent to the agents’ developers. In this paper, we address this problem, introducing and evaluating an approach to testing autonomous agents that uses evolutionary optimisation to generate demanding test cases. We propose a methodology to derive objective (fitness) functions that drive evolutionary algorithms, and evaluate the overall approach with two simulated autonomous agents. The obtained results show that our approach is effective in finding good test cases automatically.     

An autonomous manufacturing system based on swarm of cognitive agents

Disruptions of the manufacturing systems caused by the disturbances such as the tool wear, machine breakdown, malfunction of robot or transporter, and so on reduce the productivity as well as increase the cost of product. The conventional manufacturing systems are unable to face with the disturbances by their rigid structure. These systems should be stopped when the disturbances occur. The paper presents an Autonomous Manufacturing System based on Swarm of Cognitive Agents (AMS-SCA) in order to adapt to the disturbances. In the AMS-SCA, the manufacturing system is considered as a swarm of cognitive agents where work-pieces, machines, robots, and transporters are controlled by the corresponding cognitive agents. The system reacts to disturbances autonomously based on the reaction of each agent or the cooperation among them. To develop the AMS-SCA, the disturbances happened in the machining shop were analyzed to find out the corresponding management methods. A test-bed was implemented to prove the functionality of the proposed AMS-SCA.     

Distributed algorithms for partitioning a swarm of autonomous mobile robots

A number of recent studies address systems of mobile autonomous robots from a distributed computing point of view. Although such systems employ robots that are relatively weak and simple (i.e., dimensionless, oblivious and anonymous), they are nevertheless expected to have strong fault tolerance capabilities as a group. This paper studies the partitioning problem, where n$n$ robots must divide themselves into k$k$ size-balanced groups, and examines the impact of common orientation on the solvability of this problem. First, deterministic crash-fault-tolerant algorithms are given for the problem in the asynchronous full-compass and semi-synchronous half-compass models, and a randomized algorithm is given for the semi-synchronous no-compass model. Next, the role of common orientation shared by the robots is examined. Necessary and sufficient conditions for the partitioning problem to be solvable are given in the different timing models. Finally, the problem is proved to be unsolvable in the no-compass synchronous model.     

Canada: meeting the software quality challenge; current activities

Canada has a substantial software industry made up of a few very sizeable players and a large percentage of small companies. This strategically important industry is adjusting to the quality demands of the global marketplace and the need for quality in the software engineering process environment. This paper will note some of the challenges facing Canadian software firms, and outline the key national and local initiatives undertaken in the past two years to deal with these challenges. A few specific programs and organizations are chosen to illustrate the diversity of the efforts and to present the new spirit of cooperation taking place from coast to coast.     

Anonymity and software agents: An interdisciplinary challenge

Software agents that play a role in E-commerce and E-government applications involving the Internet often contain information about the identity of their human user such as credit cards and bank accounts. This paper discusses whether this is necessary: whether human users and software agents are allowed to be anonymous under the relevant legal regimes and whether an adequate interaction and balance between law and anonymity can be realised from both the perspective of Computer Systems and the perspective of Law.This paper is an extended and fully revised version of Brazier, Kubbe, Oskamp and Wijngaards (2002) and Brazier, Oskamp, Prins, Schellekens and Wijngaards (2003).     

Science and substance: a challenge to software engineers

For 25 years, software researchers have proposed improving software development and maintenance with new practices whose effectiveness is rarely, if ever, backed up by hard evidence. We suggest several ways to address the problem, and we challenge the community to invest in being more scientific     

On building with reusable software: Democratization of information systems automation through software reuse

Software reuse is an important emerging technology. It allows consumption of reusable information, which, in turn, can contribute to democratization of information systems automation. I introduce software reuse concepts and discuss current reuse approaches, issues of economics of reuse, and currently used metaphors as they apply to the reuse consumer. The discussion should give those who have not yet began to exploit consumption of information reuse a starting point for their considerations.Some sections of this paper were presented, in brief, during the Third International Conference for Systems Integration held in Sao Paulo City, Brazil, July 30 to August 6th, 1994.     

Automated assembly of Internet-scale software systems involving autonomous agents

On the Internet, there is a great amount of distributed software entities deployed independently and behaving autonomously. This paper describes an automated approach to constructing Internet-scale software systems based on autonomous software agents. In the approach, the systems are modeled by interconnected divisions and cooperative roles. The approach adopts a dynamic trial-and-evaluation strategy to select high quality autonomous agents to undertake the responsibilities of roles, and implements a special mobile agent, called delegate, carrying the interaction information specified for responsibilities of roles to facilitate the interoperations among autonomous agents. The experiments show that the approach is highly scalable and improves the overall qualities of systems remarkably.     

Autonomic communication services: a new challenge for software agents

The continuous growth in ubiquitous and mobile network connectivity, together with the increasing number of networked devices populating our everyday environments, call for a deep rethinking of traditional communication and service architectures. The emerging area of autonomic communication addresses such challenging issues by trying to identify novel flexible network architectures, and by conceiving novel conceptual and practical tools for the design, development, and execution of “autonomic” (i.e., self-organizing, self-adaptive and context-aware) communication services. In this paper, after having introduced the general concepts behind autonomic communication and autonomic communication services, we analyze the key issue of defining suitable “component” models for autonomic communication services, and discuss the strict relation between such models and agent models. On this basis, we survey and compare different approaches, and eventually try to synthesize the key desirable characteristics that one should expect from a general-purpose component model for autonomic communication services. The key message we will try to deliver is that current research in software agents and multi-agent systems have the potential for playing a major role in inspiring and driving the identification of such a model, and more in general for influencing and advancing the whole area of autonomic communication.     

WatchBot: A building maintenance and surveillance system based on autonomous robots

There is a growing interest in the use of intelligent technologies in new buildings. An intelligent system should be designed in a manner that allows minimum human intervention during daily operation. However, large buildings need substantial manpower for maintenance, management as well as surveillance to ensure a quality environment for the occupants. This paper describes a multi-robot system for building maintenance and surveillance applications over the Internet. Each robot can handle autonomously some daily maintenance and surveillance routine tasks, although remote control of the robots via the Internet or intranet is also possible. Apart from the user-started and scheduled tasks, the robots can also execute tasks to handle alarms triggered by the building automation system (BAS). Robots are connected to the central management office via a local area network. This paper shows the advantages of using mobile robots for building maintenance and surveillance tasks by improving efficiency and reducing manpower. The system was developed with the Robotics Integrated Development Environment (RIDE) and was tested intensively in different environments.     

化学计量学建模软件的开发及应用

本文利用数据库技术,针对Y=F(X)数学模型,编写集模型管理、数据样本管理和建模、预报为一体的通用性处理软件。软件自动适应不同分析体系中,自变量数和目标函数的变化,并支持在模型中对每个自变量进行定义,及其物理意义的显示。软件中提供了MLR、PCR、PLS、神经网络和遗传算法-PLS联用5种建模方法,并将交叉验证方法嵌入PCR、PLS方法中,用交叉验证法检验样本中的奇异样本点。利用模拟数据对软件进行了检验。     

The difficulties of building generic reliability models for software

The Software Engineering research community have spent considerable effort in developing models to predict the behaviour of software. A number of these models have been derived based on the pre and post behaviour of the development of software products, but when these models are applied to other products, the results are often disappointing. This appears to differentiate Software from other engineering disciplines that often depend on generic predictive models to verify the correctness of their products. This short paper discusses why other engineering disciplines have managed to create generalized models, the challenges faced by the Software industry to build these models, and the change we have made to our process in Microsoft to address some of these challenges.