Conceptual Map and Classification in Ensembles of Autonomic Components: from Awareness to Organization

Designing cooperative autonomic components and studying their possible interactions when operating in ensemble in open and non-deterministic environments, poses several challenges for the developer. While older studies focus on the several possibilities for optimized collaboration protocols and communication possibilities in distributed architectures, the most recent trend is more focussing on the self-expression and self-organizing features that aware components may deploy during run-time, thus exploring new frontiers in designing adaptive collaboration patterns. In this paper we propose a conceptual map for autonomic components (taking into account the distributed robotics scenario) able to classify old and new approaches in collaboration, highlighting similarities and commonalities between patterns and by focussing on the last studies about awareness of autonomous components. Being a preliminary study, the further goal is represented by finding a design approach for dynamically changing collaboration patterns during a run-time execution of tasks.