Miniature Software for Pervasive Computing Applications

Miniature Software is a new software engineering technology that addresses the many challenges in building real-time code for large pervasive computing applications. These applications will have dozens to thousands of very small processing nodes embeddedinto everything, including within both solid objects and liquid, or attached to any other medium for which sensory information or command and control is needed. They will communicate amongst themselves and interface to the Internet through base stations.In Phase I, ERS demonstrated the technical feasibility of miniature software technology for the tiny nodes. An aspect-oriented software design approach was used to weave a real-time operating system, component framework, wireless networking, andapplication code into very tiny code execution blocks that were distributed among several tiny nodes, so that the whole pervasive application can be developed through a single effort. Phase II work will focus on commercializing the miniature softwaretechnology through the creation of a computer aided software engineering tool that encapsulates, abstracts, and integrates the core aspects of the technology. The work will include deployment of some pervasive applications, both for demonstrating thecapabilities and use of the tool and to generate income through sales of the applications.