2024 Faculty Courses School of Computing Department of Computer Science Graduate major in Computer Science
Self-adaptive Systems
- Academic unit or major
- Graduate major in Computer Science
- Instructor(s)
- Kenji Tei
- Class Format
- Lecture/Exercise (HyFlex)
- Media-enhanced courses
- -
- Day of week/Period
(Classrooms) - 5-6 Mon / 5-6 Thu
- Class
- -
- Course Code
- CSC.T528
- Number of credits
- 110
- Course offered
- 2024
- Offered quarter
- 2Q
- Syllabus updated
- Mar 14, 2025
- Language
- English
Syllabus
Course overview and goals
A self-adaptive system is a software system that can autonomously change its own structure or behavior at runtime in response to environmental changes. It has been applied to various domains including cloud systems, IoT, and robot systems. This course is designed to assist students in gaining a comprehensive understanding of fundamental development approaches and techniques for self-adaptive systems through lectures. Additionally, students will acquire practical knowledge and skills in applying these development techniques to the development of self-adaptive systems through hands-on exercises.
Course description and aims
The goals of this course are to
(1) be able to understand and explain basic concept and design principles of self-adaptive systems,
(2) be able to understand and explain basic self-adaptive system development approaches and techniques such as architecture-based adaptation, requirement-driven adaptation, and control-based adaptation, and
(3) be able to apply those knowledge to actual self-adaptive system development.
Keywords
self-adaptive systems, MAPE-K loop, architecture-based adaptation, requirement-driven adaptation, runtime models, control-based adaptation
Competencies
- Specialist skills
- Intercultural skills
- Communication skills
- Critical thinking skills
- Practical and/or problem-solving skills
Class flow
The classes from 1st to 7th will deliver lectures on self-adaptive system development using lecture materials such as slides. In the 8th and 9th classes, each student will give a presentation about a research paper related to self-adaptive systems and engage in discussions. The 10th to 14th classes will involve team-based hands-on exercises related to self-adaptive system development. Intermediate presentation will be given in the 12th class and final presentation will be in the 14th class.
Course schedule/Objectives
| Course schedule | Objectives | |
|---|---|---|
| Class 1 | Introduction to self-adaptive systems | Undersdand course overview, principles of self-adaptation, and conceptual model of a self-adaptive system |
| Class 2 | Automating tasks | Understand autonomic computing, self-* properties, and MAPE-K loop |
| Class 3 | Architecture-based adaptation | Understand three layer model for self-adaptive systems, self-adaptation on component-based architecture, and architecture-based adaptation |
| Class 4 | Runtime models | Understand runtime model for self-adaptation, dimensions of runtime models (structure vs behavior, declarative vs procedural, functional vs qualitative, formal vs informal), and principal strategies for using runtime models |
| Class 5 | Requirements-driven adaptation | Understand relaxing requirements for self-adaptation, meta-requirements for self-adaptation, and functional requirements of feedback loops |
| Class 6 | Guarantees under uncertainties | Understand uncertainties in self-adaptive systems, taming uncertainty with formal techniques (exhaustive/statistical verification, proactive decision making), and an integrated process to tame uncertainty |
| Class 7 | Control-based software adaptation | Understand a brief introduction to control theory, automatic construction of SISO/MIMO controllers, and model predictive control |
| Class 8 | Recent research topics in self-adaptive systems (1) | Students introduce research papers related to this course and engage in discussion. |
| Class 9 | Recent research topics in self-adaptive systems (2) | Students introduce research papers related to this course and engage in discussion. |
| Class 10 | Self-adaptive systems development hands-on (1): Team-building and exemplar selection | Organize development team and select an exemplar for team development |
| Class 11 | Self-adaptive systems development hands-on (2): Team development | Develop an self-adaptive system with the selected exemplar |
| Class 12 | Self-adaptive systems development hands-on (3): Self-adaptive system development | Intermediate presentation and demonstration |
| Class 13 | Self-adaptive systems development hands-on (4): Team development | Evolve an self-adaptive system with the selected exemplar |
| Class 14 | Self-adaptive systems development hands-on (4): Presentation and Demonstration | Final presentation and demonstration |
Study advice (preparation and review)
To enhance effective learning, students are encouraged to spend approximately 100 minutes preparing for class and another 100 minutes reviewing class content afterwards (including assignments) for each class.
They should do so by referring to textbooks and other course material.
Textbook(s)
Not specified
Reference books, course materials, etc.
Danny Weyns, An Introduction to Self-adaptive Systems: A Contemporary Software Engineering Perspective, IEEE Press.
Others will be introduced in the lecture slides as appropriate.
Evaluation methods and criteria
Class attendance and attitude in class, research paper presentation: 40%
Hands-on exercises: 60%
Related courses
- CSC.T361 ： Software Design and Quality
- CSC.T435 ： Advanced Software Engineering
- CSC.T426 ： Software Design Methodology
- CSC.T424 ： Workshop on Software Development
Prerequisites
Students should have taken related courses or have equivalent knowledge and experience in software engineering and software development.
Other
Each student is required to prepare his/her own laptop PC for the paper presentation and hands-on exercises.