Collision-based computing and Event Calculus to represent and control complex engineering systems

Software is always more a strategic asset to sustain complexity of human societies. The requirement to control an increasing number of continuously changing processes is the cause of a transition from centralized to distributed and cooperative organizations. The consequence is a computer systems design integrated in the process of define/improve system models with a progressive approach too. To reach the described research objective we have developed a new approach to design a computer system. In our design approach we mapped the physical structure of a system to a multidimensional Cellular Automata Space (CAS). CAS collects data from sensors that are at the specific coordinates of cells and it is the substrata for energy, materials and information flow representation. Events and Actions in a CAS are described using Event Calculus and the flow of fluents is interpreted on the basis of Collision-based computing paradigm. Trajectories approaching a collision site represent input values, and trajectories of localizations traveling away from a collision site represent output values. At this point we have a model of a real system as dynamic networks of fluents. This is represented using the language of flow pattern, inspired by F. Niscida´s work, a semi-symbolic representation of the patterns in CAS states space. The flow patterns are used in a qualitative analysis to monitor and interpret the result of CAS computation.