Aroma Pervasive Computing
(http://www.nist.gov/aroma)
Alden Dima (alden.dima@nist.gov)
Overview: Pervasive computing is the next great computing paradigm shift and will have no less of an impact to industry, government, and daily life than the personal computing revolution. Within five years vendors will offer portable and embedded devices containing low-cost systems-on-a-chip (SOC) that include enough CPU, memory, and input/output logic to support execution of complex software interconnected via pico-cellular wireless communications. By outfitting portable and embedded devices with high bandwidth, localized wireless communication capabilities that can also reach the global Internet, this SOC technology promises to revolutionize computing and networking, as we know it today. Despite the fact that hardware and networking technologies are visibly enabling this revolution, its ultimate success lies in addressing the software engineering challenges.
Industry Need Addressed: Widespread adoption of pervasive computing is hampered by the lack of software infrastructure, tools and techniques to create, manage, measure, test, and debug pervasive services and applications. Standards are lacking in key areas such as service discovery, APIs, interoperability, pico-cellular wireless networks, automatic configuration, and ad hoc transactional security. Additionally, industry is asking for reference implementations and testing and diagnostic tools to address this highly distributed, heterogeneous computing environment.
NIST/ITL Approach: Pervasive computing creates new challenges for software testing and measurement due
to its distributed and dynamic nature. NIST/ITL is working with industry to better understand the technical and
standardization issues and to ensure software maintains a high degree of interoperability, dependability, and
performance. To accomplish this, NIST/ITL is developing new methods, simulation tools, prototypes, and testing
tools. Specific tasks include:
- Develop prototypes (reference implementations) to gain competence, industry recognition, and identify
standardization and testing issues.
- Specify software in more rigorous and precise ways (e.g., via Architectural Description Language) and enable
improved analysis of specifications.
- Provide a rapid, cost-effective means of modeling pervasive computing requirements that would facilitate the
creation and maintenance of pervasive computing systems and related measurements and tests (e.g., a 3D graphical
simulation tool, called EXiST).
- Conduct and participate in conferences, such as the NIST Pervasive Computing Conference (PC 2000, PC 2001,
and PC 2002) and Java One, to disseminate information, establish partnerships, and discuss key issues.
- Coordinate work with other ITL divisions, who are focusing on other aspects of pervasive computing (e.g., wireless networks, sensors, security).
Impact: The first annual Pervasive Computing 2000 Conference provided a forum for launching discussions
on the technology, standardization efforts, and software tools, as well as foster partnerships among stakeholders
of pervasive computing. The Aroma prototype, a pervasive projector, provided the stimulus for understanding some
of the interoperability issues (e.g., interconnecting heterogeneous hardware and software), performance issues, and
led to discussions and partnerships with industry and academia, including Sun Microsystems and the Jini Community,
Chi Software, Maya Design, and the U.S. Naval Academy. The EXiST simulation tool provides a means to
experiment with pervasive computing architectures, measurements, and tests without having to build the entire
system and will help developers to cost effectively design systems as well as fine tune and find bottlenecks
in deployed systems. Using our multidisciplinary approach, we collaborate with industry to target key
pervasive computing application areas such as health care.
|
|
