Middleware platform for distributed applications incorporating robots, sensors and the cloud

Cyber-physical systems in the factory of the future will consist of cloud-hosted software governing an agile production process executed by autonomous mobile robots and controlled by analyzing the data from a vast number of sensors. CPSs thus operate on a distributed production floor infrastructure and the set-up continuously changes with each new manufacturing task. In this paper, we present our OSGibased middleware that abstracts the deployment of servicebased CPS software components on the underlying distributed platform comprising robots, actuators, sensors and the cloud. Moreover, our middleware provides specific support to develop components based on artificial neural networks, a technique that recently became very popular for sensor data analytics and robot actuation. We demonstrate a system where a robot takes actions based on the input from sensors in its vicinity

OSGi in Cloud Environments

This paper deals with the combination of OSGi and cloud computing. Both technologies are mainly placed in the field of distributed computing. Therefore, it is discussed how different approaches from different institutions work. In addition, the approaches are compared to each other

Moving forward on u-healthcare: A framework for patient-centric

Delivering remote healthcare services without deteriorating the ‘patient experience’ requires building highly usable and adaptive applications. Efficient context data collection and management make possible to infer extra knowledge on the user’s situation, making easier the design of these advanced ubiquitous applications. This contribution, part of a work in progress which aims at building an operative AmI middleware, presents a generic architecture to provide u-healthcare services, to be delivered both in mobile and home environments. In particular, we address the design of the Context Management Component (CMC), the module that takes context data from the sensing layer and performs data fusion and reasoning to build an aggregated ‘context image’. We especially explain the requirements on data modelling and the functional features that are imposed to the CMC. The resulting logical multilayered architecture -composed by acquisition and fusion, inference and reasoning levels- is detailed, and the technologies needed to develop the Context Management Component are finally specifie

An Autonomic Cross-Platform Operating Environment for On-Demand Internet Computing

The Internet has evolved into a global and ubiquitous communication medium interconnecting powerful application servers, diverse desktop computers and mobile notebooks. Along with recent developments in computer technology, such as the convergence of computing and communication devices, the way how people use computers and the Internet has changed people´s working habits and has led to new application scenarios. On the one hand, pervasive computing, ubiquitous computing and nomadic computing become more and more important since different computing devices like PDAs and notebooks may be used concurrently and alternately, e.g. while the user is on the move. On the other hand, the ubiquitous availability and pervasive interconnection of computing systems have fostered various trends towards the dynamic utilization and spontaneous collaboration of available remote computing resources, which are addressed by approaches like utility computing, grid computing, cloud computing and public computing. From a general point of view, the common objective of this development is the use of Internet applications on demand, i.e. applications that are not installed in advance by a platform administrator but are dynamically deployed and run as they are requested by the application user. The heterogeneous and unmanaged nature of the Internet represents a major challenge for the on demand use of custom Internet applications across heterogeneous hardware platforms, operating systems and network environments. Promising remedies are autonomic computing systems that are supposed to maintain themselves without particular user or application intervention. In this thesis, an Autonomic Cross-Platform Operating Environment (ACOE) is presented that supports On Demand Internet Computing (ODIC), such as dynamic application composition and ad hoc execution migration. The approach is based on an integration middleware called crossware that does not replace existing middleware but operates as a self-managing mediator between diverse application requirements and heterogeneous platform configurations. A Java implementation of the Crossware Development Kit (XDK) is presented, followed by the description of the On Demand Internet Computing System (ODIX). The feasibility of the approach is shown by the implementation of an Internet Application Workbench, an Internet Application Factory and an Internet Peer Federation. They illustrate the use of ODIX to support local, remote and distributed ODIC, respectively. Finally, the suitability of the approach is discussed with respect to the support of ODIC

Resolving the Problem of Intelligent Learning Content in Learning Management Systems

Current e-learning standardization initiatives have put much effort into easing interoperability between systems and the reusability of contents. For this to be possible, one of the most relevant areas is the definition of a run-time environment, which allows Learning Management Systems to launch, track and communicate with learning objects. However, when dealing with intelligent content, these environments show important restrictions. In this article, we study these restrictions, comparing several standardized run-time environments with nonstandardized solutions that aim to overcome these constraints

Software engineering perspectives on physiological computing

Physiological computing is an interesting and promising concept to widen the communication channel between the (human) users and computers, thus allowing an increase of software systems' contextual awareness and rendering software systems smarter than they are today. Using physiological inputs in pervasive computing systems allows re-balancing the information asymmetry between the human user and the computer system: while pervasive computing systems are well able to flood the user with information and sensory input (such as sounds, lights, and visual animations), users only have a very narrow input channel to computing systems; most of the time, restricted to keyboards, mouse, touchscreens, accelerometers and GPS receivers (through smartphone usage, e.g.). Interestingly, this information asymmetry often forces the user to subdue to the quirks of the computing system to achieve his goals -- for example, users may have to provide information the software system demands through a narrow, time-consuming input mode that the system could sense implicitly from the human body. Physiological computing is a way to circumvent these limitations; however, systematic means for developing and moulding physiological computing applications into software are still unknown. This thesis proposes a methodological approach to the creation of physiological computing applications that makes use of component-based software engineering. Components help imposing a clear structure on software systems in general, and can thus be used for physiological computing systems as well. As an additional bonus, using components allow physiological computing systems to leverage reconfigurations as a means to control and adapt their own behaviours. This adaptation can be used to adjust the behaviour both to the human and to the available computing environment in terms of resources and available devices - an activity that is crucial for complex physiological computing systems. With the help of components and reconfigurations, it is possible to structure the functionality of physiological computing applications in a way that makes them manageable and extensible, thus allowing a stepwise and systematic extension of a system's intelligence. Using reconfigurations entails a larger issue, however. Understanding and fully capturing the behaviour of a system under reconfiguration is challenging, as the system may change its structure in ways that are difficult to fully predict. Therefore, this thesis also introduces a means for formal verification of reconfigurations based on assume-guarantee contracts. With the proposed assume-guarantee contract framework, it is possible to prove that a given system design (including component behaviours and reconfiguration specifications) is satisfying real-time properties expressed as assume-guarantee contracts using a variant of real-time linear temporal logic introduced in this thesis - metric interval temporal logic for reconfigurable systems. Finally, this thesis embeds both the practical approach to the realisation of physiological computing systems and formal verification of reconfigurations into Scrum, a modern and agile software development methodology. The surrounding methodological approach is intended to provide a frame for the systematic development of physiological computing systems from first psychological findings to a working software system with both satisfactory functionality and software quality aspects. By integrating practical and theoretical aspects of software engineering into a self-contained development methodology, this thesis proposes a roadmap and guidelines for the creation of new physiological computing applications.Physiologisches Rechnen ist ein interessantes und vielversprechendes Konzept zur Erweiterung des Kommunikationskanals zwischen (menschlichen) Nutzern und Rechnern, und dadurch die Berücksichtigung des Nutzerkontexts in Software-Systemen zu verbessern und damit Software-Systeme intelligenter zu gestalten, als sie es heute sind. Physiologische Eingangssignale in ubiquitären Rechensystemen zu verwenden, ermöglicht eine Neujustierung der Informationsasymmetrie, die heute zwischen Menschen und Rechensystemen existiert: Während ubiquitäre Rechensysteme sehr wohl in der Lage sind, den Menschen mit Informationen und sensorischen Reizen zu überfluten (z.B. durch Töne, Licht und visuelle Animationen), hat der Mensch nur sehr begrenzte Einflussmöglichkeiten zu Rechensystemen. Meistens stehen nur Tastaturen, die Maus, berührungsempfindliche Bildschirme, Beschleunigungsmesser und GPS-Empfänger (zum Beispiel durch Mobiltelefone oder digitale Assistenten) zur Verfügung. Diese Informationsasymmetrie zwingt die Benutzer zur Unterwerfung unter die Usancen der Rechensysteme, um ihre Ziele zu erreichen - zum Beispiel müssen Nutzer Daten manuell eingeben, die auch aus Sensordaten des menschlichen Körpers auf unauffällige weise erhoben werden können. Physiologisches Rechnen ist eine Möglichkeit, diese Beschränkung zu umgehen. Allerdings fehlt eine systematische Methodik für die Entwicklung physiologischer Rechensysteme bis zu fertiger Software. Diese Dissertation präsentiert einen methodischen Ansatz zur Entwicklung physiologischer Rechenanwendungen, der auf der komponentenbasierten Softwareentwicklung aufbaut. Der komponentenbasierte Ansatz hilft im Allgemeinen dabei, eine klare Architektur des Software-Systems zu definieren, und kann deshalb auch für physiologische Rechensysteme angewendet werden. Als zusätzlichen Vorteil erlaubt die Komponentenorientierung in physiologischen Rechensystemen, Rekonfigurationen als Mittel zur Kontrolle und Anpassung des Verhaltens von physiologischen Rechensystemen zu verwenden. Diese Adaptionstechnik kann genutzt werden um das Verhalten von physiologischen Rechensystemen an den Benutzer anzupassen, sowie an die verfügbare Recheninfrastruktur im Sinne von Systemressourcen und Geräten - eine Maßnahme, die in komplexen physiologischen Rechensystemen entscheidend ist. Mit Hilfe der Komponentenorientierung und von Rekonfigurationen wird es möglich, die Funktionalität von physiologischen Rechensystemen so zu strukturieren, dass das System wartbar und erweiterbar bleibt. Dadurch wird eine schrittweise und systematische Erweiterung der Funktionalität des Systems möglich. Die Verwendung von Rekonfigurationen birgt allerdings Probleme. Das Systemverhalten eines Software-Systems, das Rekonfigurationen unterworfen ist zu verstehen und vollständig einzufangen ist herausfordernd, da das System seine Struktur auf schwer vorhersehbare Weise verändern kann. Aus diesem Grund führt diese Arbeit eine Methode zur formalen Verifikation von Rekonfigurationen auf Grundlage von Annahme-Zusicherungs-Verträgen ein. Mit dem vorgeschlagenen Annahme-Zusicherungs-Vertragssystem ist es möglich zu beweisen, dass ein gegebener Systementwurf (mitsamt Komponentenverhalten und Spezifikation des Rekonfigurationsverhaltens) eine als Annahme-Zusicherungs-Vertrag spezifizierte Echtzeiteigenschaft erfüllt. Für die Spezifikation von Echtzeiteigenschaften kann eine Variante von linearer Temporallogik für Echtzeit verwendet werden, die in dieser Arbeit eingeführt wird: Die metrische Intervall-Temporallogik für rekonfigurierbare Systeme. Schließlich wird in dieser Arbeit sowohl ein praktischer Ansatz zur Realisierung von physiologischen Rechensystemen als auch die formale Verifikation von Rekonfigurationen in Scrum eingebettet, einer modernen und agilen Softwareentwicklungsmethodik. Der methodische Ansatz bietet einen Rahmen für die systematische Entwicklung physiologischer Rechensysteme von Erkenntnissen zur menschlichen Physiologie hin zu funktionierenden physiologischen Softwaresystemen mit zufriedenstellenden funktionalen und qualitativen Eigenschaften. Durch die Integration sowohl von praktischen wie auch theoretischen Aspekten der Softwaretechnik in eine vollständige Entwicklungsmethodik bietet diese Arbeit einen Fahrplan und Richtlinien für die Erstellung neuer physiologischer Rechenanwendungen

Ontological Con guration Management for Wireless Mesh Routers

This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Lecture Notes in Computer Science. The final authenticated version is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-04968-2_10[Abstract] Wireless mesh networks (WMNs) are a category of wireless networks that are self-organized, robust and which offer more flexible client coverage with less equipment requirements than wired networks. In WMNs, mesh routers constitute the network’s “backbone”. The distributed, ever-changing and ad-hoc nature of these networks poses new challenges in configuration management. In order to face them, we modelize the configuration and semantics of a preexisting mesh router using the CIM model and OWL ontology language and implementing XSLT transformations from the original configuration format to CIM/OWL and back. We thus represent it in a higher level of abstraction, an ontological representation that supports configuration semantic checking, policy enforcing and reasoning on the configuration of WMN nodes. We also use the capabilities of our AdCIM framework for persistence and the generation of web configuration interfaces.Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia; TIN2007-67537-C03Xunta de Galicia; PGIDIT06PXIB105228PRMinistère de l'Enseignement supérieur, de la Recherche et de l'Innovation; ANR-05-RNRT-012-0