Middleware Specification for Low-Power Distributed Processing Devices

Power usage is of special engineering concern for hand-held devices. The migration of much of the signal processing to software in Software Defined Radios has shifted power concerns from specialized signal processors to more general-purpose computing elements. The power needed is determined by the power of the CPU used and the size of the memory required. In turn, the power requirements and memory requirements are determined by the processing requirements of all layers of the software infrastructure: the software application, the middleware, and the operating system. This proposal focusses on the contribution of the middleware and proposes the development of a new specification for middleware for low-power devices. Changing contexts, such as power conservation requirements, demand re-examination of the engineering tradeoffs made in the previous generation of devices. The development of the new specification requires a deep, clear, metric-based understanding of the current state of technologies, as well as a vision of how a new technology will reach new market segments while serving the interests of existing technology users.