Uncertainty Interaction in Software-Intensive Systems: A Community Roadmap

Despite substantial progress in managing uncertainty in software-intensive systems, existing methods often treat uncertainty sources independently and provide limited support for understanding their combined effects. When multiple uncertainties propagate through system elements and converge at shared variables, models, or decision points, they may interact in ways that alter system behavior, compromise requirements, or invalidate assurance arguments. This challenge, referred to as the uncertainty interaction problem, remains insufficiently understood. This roadmap paper reports the outcomes of the NII Shonan Seminar No. 232 on Uncertainty Interaction in Software-Intensive Systems (UNISON), held in March 2026. It develops a shared conceptual vocabulary for distinguishing uncertainty sources, propagation, confluence, interaction, and relevance; proposes an abstract workflow for identifying, filtering, and assessing relevant uncertainty interactions; and introduces a lifecycle-oriented framework for characterizing and selecting mitigation strategies. Building on these foundations, the paper organizes open challenges into a staged research roadmap spanning conceptual consolidation, reusable methods, engineering integration, validation, tooling, and community adoption. The roadmap provides a common reference point for researchers and practitioners working across software engineering, self-adaptive systems, control, artificial intelligence, formal methods, and assurance.

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Publication Details

Journal
ACM Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems
Published
2026-09-09
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1145/3846384
Primary Topic
Safety Systems Engineering in Autonomy
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00
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article

Uncertainty Interaction in Software-Intensive Systems: A Community Roadmap

Norha M. Villegas, Livia Lestingi, Nicolás Cardozo, Ralf Reussner et al.
ACM Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems
Safety Systems Engineering in Autonomy
article

Uncertainty Interaction in Software-Intensive Systems: A Community Roadmap

Norha M. Villegas, Livia Lestingi, Nicolás Cardozo, Ralf Reussner, Vincenzo Scotti, Genaína Nunes Rodrigues, Gricel Vázquez, Kenji Tei, Marin Litoiu, Raffaela Mirandola, Christos Tsigkanos, Diego Pérez-Palacín, Danilo Pianini, Ivana Dusparić, Patrizia Scandurra, Nelly Bencomo, Matteo Camilli, Anne Koziolek, Alessandro V. Papadopoulos, Karthik Vaidhyanathan, Gabriel Tamura, Javier Cámara, Gabriel A. Moreno, Fuyuki Ishikawa, Jialong Li
article en

Abstract

Despite substantial progress in managing uncertainty in software-intensive systems, existing methods often treat uncertainty sources independently and provide limited support for understanding their combined effects. When multiple uncertainties propagate through system elements and converge at shared variables, models, or decision points, they may interact in ways that alter system behavior, compromise requirements, or invalidate assurance arguments. This challenge, referred to as the uncertainty interaction problem, remains insufficiently understood. This roadmap paper reports the outcomes of the NII Shonan Seminar No. 232 on Uncertainty Interaction in Software-Intensive Systems (UNISON), held in March 2026. It develops a shared conceptual vocabulary for distinguishing uncertainty sources, propagation, confluence, interaction, and relevance; proposes an abstract workflow for identifying, filtering, and assessing relevant uncertainty interactions; and introduces a lifecycle-oriented framework for characterizing and selecting mitigation strategies. Building on these foundations, the paper organizes open challenges into a staged research roadmap spanning conceptual consolidation, reusable methods, engineering integration, validation, tooling, and community adoption. The roadmap provides a common reference point for researchers and practitioners working across software engineering, self-adaptive systems, control, artificial intelligence, formal methods, and assurance.

ACM Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (DE), University of Bergamo (IT), Software Engineering Institute (US), FZI Research Center for Information Technology (DE), Universidade de Brasília (BR), Waseda University (JP), Universidad de Los Andes (CO), National Institute of Informatics (JP), Durham University (GB), York University (CA), Trinity College Dublin (IE), Linnaeus University (SE), Space Hellas (Greece) (GR), Institute of Science Tokyo (JP), University of York (GB), Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad (IN), Carnegie Mellon University (US), Icesi University (CO), Mälardalen University (SE), Universidad de Málaga (ES), University of Bologna (IT), Politecnico di Milano (IT)
Openalex Percentile: Top 11%
Safety Systems Engineering in Autonomy
DOISourceOpenAlex
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