Bio-Robustness and Fault Tolerance: A New Perspective on Reliable, Survivable and Evolvable Network Systems

Biological structures and organizations in nature, from gene, molecular, immune systems, and biological populations, to ecological communities, are built to stand against perturbations and biological robustness is therefore ubiquitous. Furthermore, it is intuitively obvious that the counterpart of bio-robustness in engineered systems is fault tolerance. With the objective to stimulate inspiration for building reliable and survivable computer networks, this paper reviews the state-of-the-art research on bio-robustness at different biological scales (level) including gene, molecular networks, immune systems, population, and community. Besides identifying the biological/ecological principles and mechanisms relevant to biological robustness, we also review major theories related to the origins of bio-robustness, such as evolutionary game theory, self-organization and emergent behaviors. Evolutionary game theory, which we present in a relative comprehensive introduction, provides an ideal framework to model the reliability and survivability of computer networks, especially the wireless sensor networks. We also present our perspectives on the reliability and survivability of computer networks, particularly wireless sensor and ad hoc networks, based on the principles and mechanisms of bio-robustness reviewed in the paper. Finally, we propose four open questions including three in engineering and one in DNA code robustness to demonstrate the bidirectional nature of the interactions between bio-robustness and engineering fault tolerance.