Enabling High-Level Application Development for the Internet of Things

Application development in the Internet of Things (IoT) is challenging because it involves dealing with a wide range of related issues such as lack of separation of concerns, and lack of high-level of abstractions to address both the large scale and heterogeneity. Moreover, stakeholders involved in the application development have to address issues that can be attributed to different life-cycles phases. when developing applications. First, the application logic has to be analyzed and then separated into a set of distributed tasks for an underlying network. Then, the tasks have to be implemented for the specific hardware. Apart from handling these issues, they have to deal with other aspects of life-cycle such as changes in application requirements and deployed devices. Several approaches have been proposed in the closely related fields of wireless sensor network, ubiquitous and pervasive computing, and software engineering in general to address the above challenges. However, existing approaches only cover limited subsets of the above mentioned challenges when applied to the IoT. This paper proposes an integrated approach for addressing the above mentioned challenges. The main contributions of this paper are: (1) a development methodology that separates IoT application development into different concerns and provides a conceptual framework to develop an application, (2) a development framework that implements the development methodology to support actions of stakeholders. The development framework provides a set of modeling languages to specify each development concern and abstracts the scale and heterogeneity related complexity. It integrates code generation, task-mapping, and linking techniques to provide automation. Code generation supports the application development phase by producing a programming framework that allows stakeholders to focus on the application logic, while our mapping and linking techniques together support the deployment phase by producing device-specific code to result in a distributed system collaboratively hosted by individual devices. Our evaluation based on two realistic scenarios shows that the use of our approach improves the productivity of stakeholders involved in the application development

Automatic Verification of Message-Based Device Drivers

We develop a practical solution to the problem of automatic verification of the interface between device drivers and the OS. Our solution relies on a combination of improved driver architecture and verification tools. It supports drivers written in C and can be implemented in any existing OS, which sets it apart from previous proposals for verification-friendly drivers. Our Linux-based evaluation shows that this methodology amplifies the power of existing verification tools in detecting driver bugs, making it possible to verify properties beyond the reach of traditional techniques.Comment: In Proceedings SSV 2012, arXiv:1211.587

Intelligent speed adaptation: from trial support to public support

Intelligent Speed Adaptation From Trial Support to Public Support Intelligent Speed Adaptation (ISA) is a beneficial Intelligent Transport System (ITS) to increase road safety. In 2002, thirty-four cars and three buses were equipped with the “active accelerator pedal.” The results showed that the pedal assisted them well in upholding the speed limits and that the system increased driving comfort. Data analysis showed a reduction in the amount of speeding. Besides the research on the effects, the trial was used to gain more support of the general public, decision and opinion makers. Nowadays the focus is shifted to define the acceptability by the public to get a better implementation. A general research framework consisting the social and cultural factors and the device related characteristics that influence acceptability is constructed

Information-Control Software for Handling Serial Devices in an EPICS Environment

Each accelerator control system has a variety of measurement devices. One of the most common types of instrument interfaces used for their control is a serial (RS-232) bus. It is inexpensive and adequate for relatively simple measurement and control devices such as switchers, amplifiers, voltmeters, and steppermotors. Since the RS-232 specification is very broad and does not require uniformity above the basic communication protocol level, one of the major problems associated with the use of RS-232 is that the command protocol for each device is unique. This makes it difficult to design generic drivers for RS-232 and also hampers efforts to design generic troubleshooting methods. This paper presents software developed independently at three other labs and integrated into a single system at Jefferson Lab to handle serial devices in a generic manner. The software is based on the EPICS toolkit and uses a 3-tier architecture including a common serial driver at the bottom, a top-level protocol to specify individual device commands in a generic manner, and a mid-level of software to "glue" the two together.Comment: 3 pages, paper presented at Conference ICALEPCS-2001, San Jose, CA, November, 200

M[pi]log, Macromodeling via parametric identification of logic gates

This paper addresses the development of computational models of digital integrated circuit input and output buffers via the identification of nonlinear parametric models. The obtained models run in standard circuit simulation environments, offer improved accuracy and good numerical efficiency, and do not disclose information on the structure of the modeled devices. The paper reviews the basics of the parametric identification approach and illustrates its most recent extensions to handle temperature and supply voltage variations as well as power supply ports and tristate devices

Detecting Distracted Driving with Deep Learning

© Springer International Publishing AG 2017Driver distraction is the leading factor in most car crashes and near-crashes. This paper discusses the types, causes and impacts of distracted driving. A deep learning approach is then presented for the detection of such driving behaviors using images of the driver, where an enhancement has been made to a standard convolutional neural network (CNN). Experimental results on Kaggle challenge dataset have confirmed the capability of a convolutional neural network (CNN) in this complicated computer vision task and illustrated the contribution of the CNN enhancement to a better pattern recognition accuracy.Peer reviewe

CAN Fieldbus Communication in the CSP-based CT Library

In closed-loop control systems several realworld entities are simultaneously communicated to through a multitude of spatially distributed sensors and actuators. This intrinsic parallelism and complexity motivates implementing control software in the form of concurrent processes deployed on distributed hardware architectures. A CSP based occam-like architecture seems to be the most convenient for such a purpose. Many, often conflicting, requirements make design and implementation of distributed real-time control systems an extremely difficult task. The scope of this paper is limited to achieving safe and real-time communication over a CAN fieldbus for an\ud existing CSP-based framework

What drives the Acceptability of Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA)? Modeling acceptability of ISA

6370 individuals responded in Belgium (Flanders region) and 1158 persons in The Netherlands on a web-survey about ISA. A model has been estimated, by using SEM, to find out which predefined indicators would be relevant to define the acceptability of ISA. Background factors, contextual issues, and ISA-device related factors were used as indicators to predict the level of acceptability. The factors that were used in the model were based on the methods used in past ISA trials, acceptance and accep-tability theories and models. The effectiveness of ISA (1), equity (2), effectiveness of ITS (3) and personal and social aims (4), were the four variables that had the largest total effect on the acceptability of ISA. Effectiveness was found a relevant predictor for acceptance in many trials (Morsink et al, 2006). The model showed that the willingness of drivers to adopt ISA increases if they experience the system in practice: if people are convinced that ISA will assist to maintain the legal speed in different speed zones, the acceptance will be higher (Van der Pas et al., 2008). Hence, trials seem a good way to demonstrate the effectiveness of ISA. However, trials typically do not allow many people to try out ISA. Therefore, communi-cation strategies that focus on the ISA-effectiveness would be helpful to convince people about the benefits of using such a system. Often when new driver support technologies are intro-duced – especially when it could restrict certain freedom in driving – a majority of the population is reluctant when it comes to ‘buy or use’ the system. In some studies (see Morsink et al., 2006; Marchau et al., 2010) the willingness to pay was reported to be a good predictor for acceptability. However, in the present study the effect of willing-ness to pay was very low or even absent; hence it may be as-sumed that better indicators are put in the model than the willing-ness to pay. With respect to context indicators, ‘personal and social aims’ seemed to be the variable with the highest influence on accep-tability. Drivers, who rate social aims above personal aims with respect to speed and speeding, will accept ISA more. Personal and social aims had also a high influence on most of the device spe-cific indicators. Furthermore, drivers who speed for their personal benefit were found to rather speed more often. Drivers who speed in high-speed zones would also be less inclined to accept ISA. This is in line with previous findings (e.g. Jamson et al., 2006), frequent speeders would support ISA less; those drivers who would benefit most of ISA would be less likely to use it. This is an important finding when considering the strategies for implementing ISA. Some studies (e.g. Morsink et al., 2006) indicated that to increase the acceptability, implementation strategies and campaigns could focus on other benefits of ISA (like reducing speeding tickets, emissions etc.). According to our study these secondary effects have rather small effects to increase acceptability. Drivers who like to speed would even care less for these secondary benefits of ISA. The youngest group of drivers (<25 years old) would influence responsibility awareness negatively. These younger drivers are also less convinced that certain behaviour or circumstances could cause accidents. Many studies indicated that young drivers over-estimate their own driving skills, drive faster and are less aware of accident causes (Shinar et al., 2001). For the implementation of ISA – although there is no direct relationship between younger age and acceptability – a different strategy is needed to convince this group of drivers. Awareness campaigns and communication should be deployed during their education, however, road safety education and training stops during secondary school or higher education (OECD, 2006). Drivers between 25 and 45 years old would also be less inclined to accept ISA, mainly considered out of indirect effects in the esti-mated model. This group of drivers may be labelled as one of the most active groups of drivers. Another aspect is that both of the "significant found age groups were influenced by social norms. This may be very important in implementation strate-gies. For instance, role models could be used in ISA driving. This strategy was also used in the Belgian trial to gain more publicity and attention. The positive image and the improved information communication of ISA as a possible measure in road-safety have led to several voted resolutions in the Belgian federal parliament and senate (Vlassenroot et al. 2007)