SPP 1183:  Organic Computing

• Subject Area: Computer Science, Systems and Electrical Engineering
• Term: from 2005 to 2011
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 5472210

The mission of the Priority Programme is to tame complexity in technical systems by providing appropriate degrees of freedom for self-organised behaviour adapting to changing requirements of the execution environment, in particular with respect to human needs. According to this vision an organic computer system should be aware of its own capabilities, the requirements of the environment, and it should be equipped with a number of "self-x" properties allowing for the anticipated adaptiveness and for a reduction in the complexity of system management. These self-x properties are self-organisation, self-configuration, self-optimisation, self-healing, self-protection and self-explanation. To achieve these ambitious goals new methods, new techniques, and new system architectures have to be developed. Their potential and relevance should be demonstrated with respect to demanding application scenarios.
The individual research projects are focussed on the following topics:
(1) Emergent behaviour in technical systems: Insights about the behaviour of natural and artificial complex systems shall be used to open up the necessary degrees of freedom for self-organised behaviour of technical systems. This requires projects on the theory of complex systems, investigating the possibilities to establish goal-oriented emergent processes and, in particular, looking at the problems of security and stability of self-organised technical systems. Methods are needed for controlling self-organised behaviour, i.e. to direct a system towards desired emergent behaviour and to detect and prevent undesirable behavioural effects.
(2) Technologies for Organic Computing:
New base technologies are needed to support the technical utilisation of the principles of self-organisation in the implementation of organic computer systems. Complete organic computer systems will need adequate (multi-level) system architectures.
Therefore, an essential objective is to build up a versatile toolbox containing balanced concepts, methods, and tools for the design and implementation of organic computer systems. Furthermore, an evaluation of the effectiveness and efficiency of organic computer systems will require new methods and metrics for an appropriate system analysis.

• DFG Programme: Priority Programmes

Projects

• A Modular Approach for Evolving Societies of Learning Autonomous Systems (Applicant Rammig, Franz-Josef )
• Architecture and Design Methodology for Autonomic Systems on Chip (Applicants Herkersdorf, Andreas ;  Rosenstiel, Wolfgang )
• Coordination and Infrastructure, task forces and status colloquiums of the DFG-Priority Program (1183) "Organic Computing" (Applicant Schmeck, Hartmut )
• Development of methods for autonomous extraction of structure from moving images by means of learning and self-organization (Applicant Würtz, Rolf P. )
• Digital On-Demand Computing Organism: Stability and Robustness (Applicants Becker, Jürgen ;  Brinkschulte, Uwe ;  Henkel, Jörg ;  Karl, Wolfgang )
• Embedded Performance Analysis for Organic Computing (Applicant Ernst, Rolf )
• Emergent strategies to optimise collaborative transmission schemes (Applicant Beigl, Michael )
• Energy Aware Self-Organized Communication in Complex Networks (Applicant Timmermann, Dirk )
• Formal Modeling, Safety Analysis, and Verification of Organic Computing Applications (Applicant Reif, Wolfgang )
• Model-Driven Development of Self-Organizing Control Applications (Applicant Heiß, Hans-Ulrich )
• Multi-Objective Intrinsic Evolution of Embedded Systems (Applicant Platzner, Marco )
• Observation and Control of Collaborative Systems (OCCS) (Applicants Müller-Schloer, Christian ;  Schmeck, Hartmut )
• On-line Fusion of Functional Knowledge within Distributed Sensor Networks (Applicant Sick, Bernhard )
• Organic architectures for self-organising smart pixel sensor chips (Applicant Fey, Dietmar )
• Organic Computing Middleware for Ubiquitous Environments (Applicant Ungerer, Theo )
• Organic Fault-tolerant control Architecture for Robotic Applications (Applicants Brockmann, Werner ;  Maehle, Erik )
• Organic Traffic Control Collaborative (Applicants Müller-Schloer, Christian ;  Schmeck, Hartmut )
• Organisation and Control of Self-Organising Systems in Technical Compounds (Applicant Middendorf, Martin )
• Self-organizing and self-regulating coordination of a large swarm of self-navigating autonomous vehicles as occuring in traffic (Applicants Fekete, Sándor ;  Fischer, Stefan )
• Smart Teams: Local, Distributed Strategies for Self-Organizing Robotic Exploration Teams (Applicants Meyer auf der Heide, Friedhelm ;  Schindelhauer, Christian )
• The Bio-Chemical Information Processing Metaphor as a Programming Paradigm for Organic Computing (Applicant Dittrich, Peter )

• Spokesperson: Professor Dr. Hartmut Schmeck