Edinburgh Napier University

  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.