Architecting Systems-of-Systems of Self-driving Cars for Platooning on the Internet-of-Vehicles with SosADL

Abstract

A Software-intensive System-of-Systems (SoS) is architecturally designed to exhibit emergent behavior from the interactions among independent constituent systems. With the upcoming generation of self-driving vehicles, an important case of emergent behavior is vehicle platooning. In a platoon, a group of vehicles (which is dynamically formed) safely travel closely together like in a convoy. It requires, on the one hand, that each vehicle in the platoon control its velocity and the relative distance to the vehicle in front of it for avoiding rear collision and, on the other hand, that vehicles coordinate for enabling other vehicles to dynamically join or leave the platoon. This paper investigates the mediated approach for architecting a platooning of self-driving vehicles, with SosADL, a novel SoS Architecture Description Language (ADL) enhanced with broadcasting for the Internet-of-Vehicles (IoV). In particular, it demonstrates how architectural mediators expressed with broadcast constructs of SosADL for IoV supports platooning architecture descriptions through an excerpt of a real application for architecting platoons of Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs). This novel approach is supported by an integrated toolset for SoS architects.