An approach for managing a distributed feature model to evolve self-adaptive dynamic software product lines

While maintaining core assets of a product line, product line engineers may need to adapt the assets to accommodate new requirements and new devices from the changing and newly emerging markets. Additionally, due to the emergence of new computing environments like autonomous systems (e.g., ubiquitous computing and the Internet of Things), there is increasing demand for dynamic adaptations of core assets, and this often needs to be managed with minimum human intervention. We propose an approach for managing a distributed feature model in order to facilitate the adaptation of self-adaptive dynamic software product lines (DSPLs). In addition, our approach allows the change of behaviours to promote the long lifecycle of self-adaptive DSPL. The case study applied in this paper is a baby care system (BCS). BCS assists people to monitor a baby while they are sleeping. We tested our BCS in the following scenarios: adding features, removing features and changing behaviours. All these scenarios showed that it is possible to use our approach to self-adapt DSPLs.