Predicting Nonfunctional Requirement Violations in Autonomous Systems

Autonomous systems are often used in applications where environmental and internal changes may lead to requirement violations. Adapting to these changes proactively, i.e., before the violations occur, is preferable to recovering from the failures that may be caused by such violations. However, proactive adaptation needs methods for predicting requirement violations timely, accurately and with acceptable overheads. To address this need, we present a method that allows autonomous systems to predict violations of performance, dependability and other nonfunctional requirements, and therefore take preventative measures to avoid or otherwise mitigate them. Our method for predicting these autonomous system disruptions (PRESTO) comprises a design time stage and a run-time stage. At design-time, we use parametric model checking to obtain algebraic expressions that formalise the relationships between the nonfunctional properties of the requirements of interest (e.g., reliability, response time and energy use) and the parameters of the system and its environment. At run-time, we predict future changes in these parameters by applying piece-wise linear regression to online data obtained through monitoring, and we use the algebraic expressions to predict the impact of these changes on the system requirements. We demonstrate the application of PRESTO through simulation in case studies from two different domains.