Enabling Emergent Behavior in Systems-of-Systems Through Bigraph-based Modeling

Today, software systems tend to be split into multiple components that can operate, both, autonomously and ina networked way, in order to pursue a common objective.Such a polymorph approach to system architectures requiresnovel specification techniques. A system-of-systems conceptual-ization enables addressing emergent behavior, while letting theinvolved components and systems operate independently of eachother. This property requires system interoperability and canbe achieved by bigraph-based modeling. A flexible abstractionmechanism as well as a strong typing of system interactionenable system interoperability in evolutionary environments.Consequently, the composition and decomposition of bigraph-based models support the emergence of novel behavior. Weevaluate the potential of this approach based on its capabilityto represent system-of-systems according to the distinguishingcharacteristics proposed by Boardman and Sauser as well as byorchestrating two independent systems.