Organic Computing - A New Vision for Distributed Embedded Systems

Organic computing is becoming the new vision for the design of complex systems, satisfying human needs for trustworthy systems that behave life-like by adapting autonomously to dynamic changes of the environment, and have self-x properties as postulated for autonomic computing. Organic computing is a response to the threatening view of being surrounded by interacting and self-organizing systems which may become unmanageable, showing undesired emergent behavior. Major challenges for organic system design arise from the conflicting requirements to have systems that are at the same time robust and adaptive, having sufficient degrees of freedom for showing self-x properties but being open for human intervention and operating with respect to appropriate rules and constraints to prevent the occurrence of undesired emergent behavior.