The 5Cs approach provided by the BRICS Component Model (BCM) (Klotzbücher et al., 2013) is widely adopted by software engineers. However, the risks arising from the configuration and coordination are often overlooked, since they are hard to observe by the software. For example, there might be a “bump” in the instantaneous change of a control law (coordination) and/or its parameters (configuration), leading the control software to become energy-inconsistent when controlling physical system, compromising system stability and safety.
Energy-aware coordination and configuration can help design an energy-consistent system, which is stable and safe. Kim and Ryu (2010) propose a method for monitoring energy. With knowledge of the system’s state (e.g., the robot’s applied force and the difference in position), the energy consumption before changing the control law and/or system’s parameter can be calculated, and the energy after changing can be estimated. Then the corresponding control action will only be allowed if there is no energy “bump” appear, which guarantees energy consistency.