Self-adaptation for everyday systems

The use of handheld networked devices to access information systems by people moving around is spreading rapidly. Systems being used in this way typically face dynamic variation in their operating environment. In order to maintain the usability and usefulness for mobile users, self-adapting systems are needed. Self-adaptation has so far typically been applied only to mission critical systems at considerable additional cost. However, we now need ways to implement such capabilities that are affordable also in everyday systems development.In this paper we propose an approach to building such self-adapting systems where the adaptation is handled by generic middleware. The proposed approach builds on component frameworks and variability engineering to achieve adaptable systems, and property modelling, architectural reflection and context monitoring to support dynamic self-adaptation. We define a set of requirements for affordable self-adaptation and discuss the proposed approach in relation to these requirements.