OMCM-CAS: organisational model and coordination mechanism for self-adaptation and self-organisation in collective adaptive systems

Collective adaptive system (CAS) is a distributed system which has heterogeneous agents with different capabilities in large scale. Having self-adaptiveness in CAS can address problems about coordination and cooperation of agents. This research compares self-organisation (as a solution for reacting to the changes in distributed systems) with self-adaptation in a broader view and identifies the differences and correlations. Also, it considers the applicability of coordination, reflection and architectural approaches in both domains and presents a hybrid approach. Organisational models for self-organisation in distributed environment have studied and have got analysed. A new combined organisational model has been introduced based on the benefits and weak points of current organisational models. Based on presented organisational model, a coordination mechanism has been introduced for facilitating the cooperation in CAS. A Case study have been discussed and simulated and simulation results support the applicability and effectiveness of the presented organisational model and coordination mechanism.