Miniature Software for Pervasive Computing Applications

"Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) systems will increasingly rely on pervasivecomputing technology to provide intelligent sensing and control. The embeddedcomputing for such applications is provided by hundreds of very tiny processingunits, each with the ability to capture data from sensors and wirelesslytransmit it in real-time to other nodes or to a base station. Due to thephysical size and power constraints of these nodes, computing resources will bemuch less than needed by the code produced using modern software engineeringtechniques. The proposed alternate solution is a new software engineeringconcept that we call "miniature software". The approach combines componentframeworks, model-based design, real-time programming, aspect-oriented softwaredesign methods, and hardware/software co-design methods, but in such a way thatit is specifically suited to the very limited resources of minimally-powerednodes. Phase I research is to validate the concept of miniature software, andto compare and contrast it with traditional embedded code by building anexperimental prototype of a sensor network. ERS's strategy is to develop the miniature software framework, and initiallyuse it as the infrastructure for targeting new application areas. In additionto BMDO and other military needs, several large commercial application marketswould benefit greatly from miniature software. Some that we have identified andare actively pursuing are machine diag