CSR-DMSS, TM: A Substrate for Personalized Computing In the Real World

Washington University, Saint Louis MO

Investigators

Abstract

Innovations in computing technology, decreasing costs, and advances in miniaturization have made it physically and economically possible to incorporate computers into a wide variety of devices ranging from diminutive wireless sensors to large consumer appliances. This proliferation of computing devices has served to create a world full of possibly millions of such computers, scattered ubiquitously across physical spaces. These devices in combination represent a computational fabric which has the potential to enable an ambitious new class of applications that can exploit the resources in the physical world and also affect the environment around them. At present however, devices exist in isolation because their software and hardware architectures are incompatible and they have not been designed with interoperability in mind. This project envisages the design and implementation of a software system that (1) will allow large collections of heterogeneous devices to interoperate via the use of standard interfaces, (2) will enable the representation of a (potentially changing) set of such devices as a single composite device to simplify programming, and (3) will support the construction of complex applications from small modular pieces that run across multiple devices. If successful, the project will achieve a seamless integration of the computing and physical worlds in a manner that is highly sensitive to the needs of individual, groups, and organizations. Intellectual advances associated with the project will be incorporated into the computer science curriculum and will be disseminated as open source software.