Active Probing for Diagnosis of Emergent Faults*

This paper addresses the use of active probing as a tool for implementing life-cycle dependability growth concepts in networked control systems. In the controls field, the potential benefits of active probing in stochastic control were first recognized by Tse and Bar-Shalom [1974]. Significant practical development of active probing techniques, however, occurred in the networking field and was only rarely advanced by control theorists. We propose that active probing be incorporated into future dependable system designs as a method that is suitable both for new large-scale network phenomena such as emergent behavior, and also to support life-cycle dependability growth in conventional systems. Many open research and application opportunities will be noted.