Model Checking Goal-Oriented Requirements for Self-Adaptive Systems

To deal with the increasing complexity and uncertainty of software systems, novel software engineering models and tools are required to make such systems self-adaptive. As part of ongoing research, we investigate various models, schemes and mechanisms to model and engineer self-adaptation in complex software systems. To this end, we have defined SOTA (State of the Affairs) as a general goal-oriented modeling framework for the analysis and design of self-adaptive systems. In this paper, by transforming the conceptual SOTA model into an operational one, we show how SOTA can be an effective tool to perform an early, goal-level, model checking analysis for adaptive systems. This allows the developers of complex self-adaptive systems to validate the actual correctness of the self-adaptive requirements at an early stage in the software life-cycle. The approach is explored and validated using a case study in the area of e-mobility.