Purpose-driven, self-growing networks- A framework for enabling cognition in systems of systems

Purpose-driven, self-growing networks are a novel concept using their service or geographical extend to augment network capacity or operational constrains such as energy consumption. This paper builds upon the purpose-driven, self-growing paradigm: it contributes a first step towards a framework allowing a formal description and performance evaluation of such novel network functionality. The paper hereby shows how purpose-driven, self-growing networks can be described by their network lifecycle. The latter is decomposed into transition points and associated parameters, rules for transition between points, and associated costs. By applying backward reasoning, the paper contributes a mathematical description of the lifecycle and presents first ideas how such representation can be used for network optimization.