Modeling for NASA Autonomous Nano-Technology Swarm Missions and Model-Driven Autonomic Computing

NASA ANTS autonomous nano-technology swarm missions will be operating in the universe, and therefore rely much on high autonomy. This paper presents a novel technology for NASA's ANTS missions, named as model-driven autonomic computing. As the foundation for the technology, a new model is constructed for the ANTS system. Exceeding other existent models, the new hierarchical model overcomes the challenges of largeness, complexity, dynamicity and unexpectedness possessed by the ANTS system. Then, the paper exhibits the structure and functions of virtual neuron that is basic unit together with the model for the model-driven autonomic technology in ANTS missions. The paper also deploys self-configuration, self-healing, self-optimization and self-protection for ANTS. A case study, examples and simulations are illustrated.