Fault Modelling in System-of-Systems Contracts

TL;DR

This paper extends system-of-systems contract modeling to explicitly include fault modeling, addressing a gap in handling faults in complex, evolving systems, demonstrated through an audio-visual case study.

Contribution

It introduces fault modeling concepts into existing contract patterns for SoSs, enhancing their ability to specify and analyze fault behavior.

Findings

Extended contract pattern with fault modeling concepts.

Application demonstrated on Bang and Olufsen audio-visual case study.

Discussion on relation to prior fault modeling approaches.

Abstract

The nature of Systems of Systems (SoSs), large complex systems composed of independent, geographically distributed and continuously evolving constituent systems, means that faults are unavoidable. Previous work on defining contractual specifications of the constituent systems of SoSs does not provide any explicit consideration for faults. In this paper we address that gap by extending an existing pattern for modelling contracts with fault modelling concepts. The proposed extensions are introduced with respect to an Audio Visual SoS case study from Bang and Olufsen, before discussing how they relate to previous work on modelling faults in SoSs.