During the concept design of complex networked systems, concept developers have to ensure that the choice of hardware modules and the topology of the target platform will provide adequate resources to support the needs of the application. For example, future-generation aerospace systems need to consider multiple requirements, with many trade-offs, foreseeing rapid technological change and a long period for realization and service. For that purpose, we introduce NetGAP, an automated 3-phase approach to synthesize network topologies and support the exploration and concept design of networked systems with multiple requirements including dependability, security, and performance. NetGAP represents the possible interconnections between hardware modules using a graph grammar and uses a Monte Carlo Tree Search optimization to generate candidate topologies from the grammar while aiming to satisfy the requirements. We apply the proposed approach to a synthetic version of a realistic avionics application use case. It includes 99 processes and 660 messages. The experiment shows the merits of the solution to support the early-stage exploration of alternative candidate topologies. The method vividly characterizes the topology-related trade-offs between requirements stemming from security, fault tolerance, timeliness, and the "cost" of adding new modules or links. We also create a scaled-up version of the problem (267 processes, 1887 messages) to illustrate scalability. Finally, we discuss the flexibility of using the approach when changes in the application and its requirements occur.

翻译：摘要：在复杂网络化系统的概念设计阶段，概念开发人员必须确保硬件模块的选择及目标平台的拓扑结构能为应用需求提供充足资源。例如，未来航空航电系统需权衡多重需求，预测快速的技术变革，并考虑长期实现与服务周期。为此，我们提出NetGAP——一种自动化的三阶段方法，用于综合网络拓扑并支持包含可靠性、安全性和性能等多重需求的网络化系统探索与概念设计。NetGAP通过图文法表示硬件模块间的潜在互连关系，并采用蒙特卡洛树搜索优化，在满足需求的前提下从文法中生成候选拓扑。我们将该方法应用于合成版的真实航空电子用例（包含99个进程和660条消息），实验证明该方法能有效支持候选拓扑的早期探索。NetGAP生动刻画了源于安全性、容错性、实时性需求及新增模块/链路“成本”之间的拓扑权衡。此外，我们构建了问题规模化版本（267个进程、1887条消息）以验证可扩展性。最后，讨论当应用及其需求发生变更时该方法的灵活适用性。