A systematic survey on the design of self-adaptive software systems using control engineering approaches

Control engineering approaches have been identified as a promising design tool to integrate selfadaptive capabilities into software systems. Introduction of the feedback loop and controller to the management system enables the software systems to achieve the runtime performance objectives and maintain the integrity of the system when they are operating in unpredictable and dynamic environments. There is a large body of literature that proposed control engineering solutions for different application domains, dealing with different performance variables and control objectives. In addition, the relevant literature is scattered over different conference proceedings, journals and research communities. Consequently, conducting a survey to analyze and classify the existing literature is a challenging task. In this paper we present the results of a systematic survey, which includes classification and analysis of 158 papers in the existing literature. In order to capture the characteristics of the control problems and solutions proposed in these papers we introduce a taxonomy. All the selected papers are classified according to this taxonomy and then quantitative survey results are presented. In addition, the trends and limitations, challenges and possible solutions of existing works are listed as well. Further, a set of design patterns harvested during this survey is covered as well, that may assist the design of control systems for self-adaptive systems in the future.