Integrated context-aware and cloud-based adaptive home screens for android phones

This is the post-print version of this Article. The official published version can be accessed from the link below - Copyright @ 2011 Springer VerlagThe home screen in Android phones is a highly customizable user interface where the users can add and remove widgets and icons for launching applications. This customization is currently done on the mobile device itself and will only create static content. Our work takes the concept of Android home screen [3] one step further and adds flexibility to the user interface by making it context-aware and integrated with the cloud. Overall results indicated that the users have a strong positive bias towards the application and that the adaptation helped them to tailor the device to their needs by using the different context aware mechanisms

A Low-Overhead Script Language for Tiny Networked Embedded Systems

With sensor networks starting to get mainstream acceptance, programmability is of increasing importance. Customers and field engineers will need to reprogram existing deployments and software developers will need to test and debug software in network testbeds. Script languages, which are a popular mechanism for reprogramming in general-purpose computing, have not been considered for wireless sensor networks because of the perceived overhead of interpreting a script language on tiny sensor nodes. In this paper we show that a structured script language is both feasible and efficient for programming tiny sensor nodes. We present a structured script language, SCript, and develop an interpreter for the language. To reduce program distribution energy the SCript interpreter stores a tokenized representation of the scripts which is distributed through the wireless network. The ROM and RAM footprint of the interpreter is similar to that of existing virtual machines for sensor networks. We show that the interpretation overhead of our language is on par with that of existing virtual machines. Thus script languages, previously considered as too expensive for tiny sensor nodes, are a viable alternative to virtual machines

Mobile Agent Middleware for Sensor Networks: An Application Case Study

Agilla is a mobile agent middleware that facilitates the rapid deployment of adaptive applications in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Agilla allows users to create and inject special programs called mobile agents that coordinate through local tuple spaces, and migrate across the WSN performing application-specific tasks. This fluidity of code and state has the potential to transform a WSN into a shared, general-purpose computing platform capable of running several autonomous applications at a time, allowing us to harness its full potential. We have implemented and evaluated a fire tracking application to determine how well Agilla achieves its goals. Fire is modeled by agents that gradually spread throughout the network, engulfing nodes by inserting fire tuples into their local tuple spaces. Fire tracker agents are then used to form a perimeter around the fire. Using Agilla, we were able to rapidly create and deploy 47 byte fire agents, and 100 byte tracker agents on a WSN consisting of 26 MICA2 motes. Our experiments show that the tracker agents can form an 8-node perimeter around a burning node within 6.5 seconds and that it can adapt to a fire spreading at a rate of 7 seconds per hop. We also present the lessons learned about the adequacy of Agilla’s primitives, and regarding the efficiency, reliability, and adaptivity of mobile agents in a WSN

Generic Model and Architecture for Cooperating Objects in Sensor Network Environments

The complexity and heterogeneity of cooperating object applications in ubiquitous environments or of applications in the sensor network domain require the use of generic models and architectures. These architectures should provide support for the following three key issues: flexible installation, management and reconfiguration of components in the system; optimization strategies whose implementation usually involves the proper management of cross-layer information; and proper adaptation techniques that allow for the self-configuration of nodes and components in the system with minimal human intervention. In this paper, we present one possible instance of such a generic model and architecture and show its applicability using Sustainable Bridges, a sensor network application that requires the analysis of complex sensor data to achieve its goal of effectively monitoring bridges for the detection of structural defects

Designing and Implimentation of Spatial IP Address Assignment Scheme for a Wireless Network

Wireless sensor networks are composed of large numbers up to thousands of tiny radio- equipped sensors. Every sensor has a small microprocessor with enough power to allow the sensors to autonomously form networks through which sensor information is gathered. Wireless sensor networks makes it possible to monitor places like nuclear disaster areas or volcano craters without requiring humans to be immediately present. Many wireless sensor network applications cannot be performed in isolation; the sensor network must somehow be connected to monitoring and controlling entities. This research paper investigates a novel approach for connecting sensor networks to existing networks: by using the TCP/IP protocol suite in the sensor network, the sensors can be directly connected to an outside network without the need for special proxy servers or protocol converters. Bringing TCP/IP to wireless sensor networks is a challenging task, however. First, because of their limited physical size and low cost, sensors are severely constrained in terms of memory and processing power. Traditionally, these constraints have been considered too limiting for a sensor to be able to use the TCP/IP protocols. In this research paper, I show that even tiny sensors can communicate using TCP/IP. Second, the harsh communication conditions make TCP/IP perform poorly in terms of both throughput and energy efficiency. With this research paper, I suggest a number of optimizations that are intended to increase the performance of TCP/IP for sensor networks. The results of the work presented in this research paper have a significant impact on the embedded TCP/IP networking community. The software evolves as part of the research paper has become widely known in the community. The software is mentioned in books on embedded systems and networking, is used in academic courses on embedded systems, is the focus of articles in professional magazines, is incorporated in embedded operating systems, and is used in a

Flexible Service Provisioning for Heterogeneous Sensor Networks

This paper presents Servilla, a highly flexible service provisioning framework for heterogeneous wireless sensor networks. Its service-oriented programming model and middleware enable developers to construct platform-independent applications over a dynamic set of devices with diverse computational resources and sensors. A salient feature of Servilla is its support for dynamic discovery and binding to local and remote services, which enables flexible and energy-efficient in-network collaboration among heterogeneous devices. Furthermore, Servilla provides a modular middleware architecture that can be easily tailored for devices with a wide range of resources, allowing even resource-limited devices to provide services and leverage resource-rich devices for in-network processing. Microbenchmarks demonstrate the efficiency of Servilla\u27s middleware, and an application case study for structural health monitoring on a heterogeneous testbed consisting of TelosB and Imote2 nodes demonstrates the efficacy of its programming model.This paper is replaced by tech report WUCSE-2009-2

Policy-based Adaptive Routing in Autonomous WSNs

Abstract. Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are employed in different domains and applications. The resource constraint on such networks, many times composed of hundreds to thousands of devices, and the requirement of autonomous operation become their management a challenging task. This work applies policies, a well-known approach in network management, in the core task of routing in autonomous WSNs. Policies are used to establish rules to take dynamic actions on the network according to its state. Our scheme offers a high-level and flexible way to realize management tasks related to routing in WSNs, which can be defined in a progressive way as knowledge from the environment is acquired or application requirements change. Case studies employing a policy-based adaptive hybrid solution allows the autonomous selection of the best routing strategy in view of network conditions and application requirements. Simulation results show the benefits and resource savings offered by the use of policies for adaptive routing in WSNs