Self-improving system integration: Mastering continuous change

Abstract The research initiative “self-improving system integration” (SISSY) was established with the goal to master the ever-changing demands of system organisation in the presence of autonomous subsystems, evolving architectures, and highly-dynamic open environments. It aims to move integration-related decisions from design-time to run-time, implying a further shift of expertise and responsibility from human engineers to autonomous systems. This introduces a qualitative shift from existing self-adaptive and self-organising systems, moving from self-adaptation based on predefined variation types, towards more open contexts involving novel autonomous subsystems, collaborative behaviours, and emerging goals. In this article, we revisit existing SISSY research efforts and establish a corresponding terminology focusing on how SISSY relates to the broad field of integration sciences. We then investigate SISSY-related research efforts and derive a taxonomy of SISSY technology. This is concluded by establishing a research road-map for developing operational self-improving self-integrating systems.