Distributed Resource Management in Systems of Systems: An Architecture Perspective

TL;DR

This paper presents a complex network-based framework for analyzing and optimizing resource sharing and connectivity structures in Systems of Systems, balancing costs and benefits for improved resource access.

Contribution

It introduces a novel framework that models connectivity and resource management in SoSs, incorporating costs, benefits, and optimality measures, with both centralized and distributed schemes.

Findings

Connectivity structures significantly impact resource access efficiency.

Distributed schemes enable components to improve resource access autonomously.

Optimal connectivity structures vary with system heterogeneity.

Abstract

This paper introduces a framework for studying the interactions of autonomous system components and the design of the connectivity structure in Systems of Systems (SoSs). This framework, which uses complex network models, is also used to study the connectivity structure's impact on resource management. We discuss resource sharing as a mechanism that adds a level of flexibility to distributed systems and describe the connectivity structures that enhance components' access to the resources available within the system. The framework introduced in this paper explicitly incorporates costs of connection and the benefits that are received by direct and indirect access to resources and provides measures of the optimality of connectivity structures. We discuss central and a distributed schemes that, respectively, represent systems in which a central planner determines the connectivity structure and systems in which distributed components are allowed to add and sever connections to improve their own resource access. Furthermore, we identify optimal connectivity structures for systems with various heterogeneity conditions.