AI-Enabled Software and System Architecture Frameworks: Focusing on
Smart Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs)
Abstract
Several architecture frameworks for software, systems, and enterprises
have been proposed in the literature. They identified various
stakeholders and defined architecture viewpoints and views to frame and
address stakeholder concerns. However, the stakeholders with data
science and Machine Learning (ML) related concerns, such as data
scientists and data engineers, are yet to be included in existing
architecture frameworks. Therefore, they failed to address the
architecture viewpoints and views responsive to the concerns of the data
science community. In this paper, we address this gap by establishing
the architecture frameworks adapted to meet the requirements of modern
applications and organizations where ML artifacts are both prevalent and
crucial. In particular, we focus on ML-enabled Cyber-Physical Systems
(CPSs) and propose two sets of merit criteria for their efficient
development and performance assessment, namely the criteria for
evaluating and benchmarking ML-enabled CPSs and the criteria for
evaluation and benchmarking of the tools intended to support users
through the modeling and development pipeline. This study deploys
multiple empirical and qualitative research methods based on literature
review and survey instruments, including expert interviews and an online
questionnaire. We collect, analyze, and integrate the opinions of 77
experts from over 25 organizations in 10 countries to devise and
validate the proposed framework.