Coordination of ECA rules by verification and control

Abstract

Event-Condition-Action (ECA) rules are a widely used language for the high level specification of controllers in adaptive systems, such as Cyber-Physical Systems and smart environments, where devices equipped with sensors and actuators are controlled according to a set of rules. The evaluation and execution of every ECA rule is considered to be independent from the others, but interactions of rule actions can cause the system behaviors to be unpredictable or unsafe. Typical problems are in redundancy of rules, inconsistencies, circularity, or application-dependent safety issues. Hence, there is a need for coordination of ECA rule-based systems in order to ensure safety objectives. We propose a tool-supported method for verifying and controlling the correct interactions of rules, relying on formal models related to reactive systems, and Discrete Controller Synthesis (DCS) to generate correct rule controllers. © 2014 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing.