Acute stress response for self-optimizing mechatronic systems

Self-optimizing mechatronic systems have the ability to adjust their goals and behavior according to changes of the environment or system by means of complex real-time coordination and reconfiguration in the underlying software and hardware. In this paper we sketch a generic software architecture for mechatronic systems with self-optimization and outline which analogies between this architecture and the information processing in natural organisms exist. The architecture at first exploits the ability of its subsystems to adapt their resource requirements to optimize its performance with respect to the usage of available computational resources. Secondly, the architecture achieves, inspired by the acute stress response of a natural being, that in the case of an emergency it makes all recources available to address a given threat in a self-coordinated manner.