Four Exercises in Programming Dynamic Reconfigurable Systems: Methodology and Solution in DR-BIP

DR-BIP is an extension of the BIP component framework intended for programming reconfigurable systems encompassing various aspects of dynamism. A system is built from instances of types of components characterized by their interfaces. The latter consist of sets of ports through which data can be exchanged when interactions take place. DR-BIP allows the description of parametric exogenous interactions and reconfiguration operations. To naturally model self-organization and mobility of components, a system is composed of several architecture motifs, each motif consisting of a set of component instances and coordination rules. The use of motifs allows a disciplined management of dynamically changing coordination rules. The paper illustrates the basic concepts of DR-BIP through a collection of four non-trivial exercises from different application areas: fault-tolerant systems, mobile systems and autonomous systems. The presented solutions show that DR-BIP is both minimal and expressive allowing concise and natural description of non-trivial systems.