On Programming and Policing Autonomic Computing Systems

To tackle the complexity of autonomic computing systems it is crucial to provide methods supporting their systematic and principled development. Using the PSCEL language, autonomic systems can be described in terms of the constituent components and their reciprocal interactions. The computational behaviour of components is defined in a procedural style, by the programming constructs, while the adaptation logic is defined in a declarative style, by the policing constructs. In this paper we introduce a suite of practical software tools for programming and policing autonomic computing systems in PSCEL. Specifically, we integrate a Java-based runtime environment, supporting the execution of programming constructs, with the code corresponding to the policing ones. The integrated, semantic-driven framework also permits simulating and analysing PSCEL programs. Usability and potentialities of the approach are illustrated by means of a robot swarm case study.