An Engineering-Informed Modelling Approach to AIS.

A recent shift in thinking in Artificial Immune Systems (AIS) advocates developing a greater understanding of the underlying biological systems that serve as inspiration for engineering such systems by developing abstract computational models of the immune system in order to better understand the natural biology. We propose a refinement to existing frameworks which requires development of such models to be driven by the engineering problem being considered; the constraints of the engineered system must inform not only the model development, but also its validation. Using a case-study, we present a methodology which enables an abstract model of dendritic-cell trafficking to be developed with the purpose of building a self-organising wireless sensor network for temperature monitoring and maintenance. The methodology enables the development of a model which is consistent with the application constraints from the outset and can be validated in terms of the functional requirements of the application. Although the result models are not likely to be biologically faithful, they enable the engineer to better exploit the underlying metaphor, ultimately leading to reduced development time of the engineered system.