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Normative Control: Controlling Open Distributed Systems with Autonomous Entities

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Book cover Trustworthy Open Self-Organising Systems

Part of the book series: Autonomic Systems ((ASYS))

Abstract

Open distributed systems consisting of a potentially large set of autonomous entities might not be controllable directly. More precisely, standard control interventions, such as altering parameters and behaviour, are not possible due to the entity’s autonomy. However, indirect control using socio-inspired mechanisms can be applied to guide the system’s behaviour and influence the distributed entities using sanctions and incentives. The demanded behaviour as well as the corresponding sanctions and incentives are coded as norms and generated in response to perceived environmental and internal conditions. Such a norm is issued by centralised authorities. Norm violation is monitored using a higher-level observer in a distributed manner. After an introduction and motivation for using social mechanisms in technical systems, we present a novel normative control loop establishing the afore-described concept within a Trusted Desktop Grid scenario. The evaluation demonstrates the potential benefit in terms of an increased system robustness and fast recovery from attack states.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    We will refer to these individual systems as “agents” throughout the chapter, since we assume technical solutions that act on behalf of a user in an automated manner. This term goes back to the domain of multi-agent systems, see [1].

  2. 2.

    The view can be extended not only locally (aware of the environment and other agents) but also on the time axis. History-aware agents can predict future developments more accurately.

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Acknowledgements

This research is partly sponsored by the research unit OC-Trust (FOR 1085) of the German Research Foundation.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Systems Engineering, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Hannover, Germany

    Jan Kantert

  2. Organic Computing Group, University of Augsburg, Augsburg, Germany

    Sarah Edenhofer, Sven Tomforde & Jörg Hähner

  3. Institute of Systems Engineering, University of Hannover, Hannover, Germany

    Christian Müller-Schloer

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  1. Jan Kantert
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  2. Sarah Edenhofer
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  3. Sven Tomforde
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  4. Jörg Hähner
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  5. Christian Müller-Schloer
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Correspondence to Jan Kantert .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Software and Systems Engin, University of Augsburg, Augsburg, Germany

    Wolfgang Reif

  2. Institute for Software and Systems Engin, University of Augsburg, Augsburg, Bayern, Germany

    Gerrit Anders

  3. Institute for Software and Systems Engin, University of Augsburg, Augsburg, Germany

    Hella Seebach

  4. Department of Computer Science and Engin, Chalmers University of Technology Univer, Gothenburg, Sweden

    Jan-Philipp Steghöfer

  5. Human-Centered Multimedia, University of Augsburg, Augsburg, Germany

    Elisabeth André

  6. Organic Computing Group, University of Augsburg, Augsburg, Bayern, Germany

    Jörg Hähner

  7. Institute of Systems Engineering, University of Hannover, Hannover, Germany

    Christian Müller-Schloer

  8. Systems and Networking Group, University of Augsburg, Augsburg, Germany

    Theo Ungerer

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Kantert, J., Edenhofer, S., Tomforde, S., Hähner, J., Müller-Schloer, C. (2016). Normative Control: Controlling Open Distributed Systems with Autonomous Entities. In: Reif, W., et al. Trustworthy Open Self-Organising Systems. Autonomic Systems. Birkhäuser, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-29201-4_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-29201-4_4

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