Uncertainty Interaction in Software-Intensive Systems: A Community Roadmap

Abstract

Despite substantial progress in managing uncertainty in software-intensive systems, existing methods often treat uncertainty sources independently and provide limited support for understanding their combined effects. When multiple uncertainties propagate through system elements and converge at shared variables, models, or decision points, they may interact in ways that alter system behavior, compromise requirements, or invalidate assurance arguments. This challenge, referred to as the uncertainty interaction problem, remains insufficiently understood. This roadmap paper reports the outcomes of the NII Shonan Seminar No. 232 on Uncertainty Interaction in Software-Intensive Systems (UNISON), held in March 2026. It develops a shared conceptual vocabulary for distinguishing uncertainty sources, propagation, confluence, interaction, and relevance; proposes an abstract workflow for identifying, filtering, and assessing relevant uncertainty interactions; and introduces a lifecycle-oriented framework for characterizing and selecting mitigation strategies. Building on these foundations, the paper organizes open challenges into a staged research roadmap spanning conceptual consolidation, reusable methods, engineering integration, validation, tooling, and community adoption. The roadmap provides a common reference point for researchers and practitioners working across software engineering, self-adaptive systems, control, artificial intelligence, formal methods, and assurance.