CAREER: Improving the Productivity of the Sensor Network Programmer

Cleveland State University, Cleveland OH

Investigators

Abstract

Wireless sensor networks (sensornets) have the potential to enable an unprecedented amount of visibility and control over the world around us. There are major obstacles to realizing this potential, however: the methods and tools available for constructing sensornet software are too brittle, and require specialized training to use effectively. This CAREER project is investigating ways to overcome these obstacles. In particular, this project involves creating programming and middleware artifacts, specification and reasoning techniques, and toolsets that can be easily used by "non-programmer" specialists -- researchers outside of the field of computing. The project has four major thrusts: (i) a system of programming that will enable non-programmer specialists to express applications in a form that is natural for them to develop sensornet applications on their own, (ii) a notation for specifying the functional behavior as well as performance and quality-of-service (QoS) profiles of software components that provide various services, (iii) a set of tools that will support application development, integrating the programming and specification systems, and (iv) integration of research findings into the graduate and undergraduate curricula, and outreach into the K-12 preparatory curricula. The success of this project will be validated through collaborative efforts along with researchers in transportation engineering, automation systems, and environmental science. The results from this project will be disseminated via papers in conferences and journals, and all the software created will be distributed to the research community under open-source licenses.