Flexible Application Programming/Deployment and Soft Actuation in WSN-based Smart Environments
Wireless sensor and actuator networks (WSANs) are a key component of ubiquitous and pervasive computing, and will play an increasingly important role in the next generation of computer-based systems. This talk will present research that was performed at IRETETH/CERTH and UTH on flexible application programming/deployment and actuation in smart home environments. The first part of the talk will describe a WSAN application programming/deployment model and corresponding middleware support, which was developed in the POBICOS FP7 project. Applications are structured as a hierarchy of mobile components, called micro-agents, which are dynamically created on the nodes of the WSAN to perform in-network processing, and can move between nodes at runtime to reduce the traffic over the wireless links as a function of the application dynamics. The second part of the talk will present a new form of actuation, whereby the application does not perform any proactive/automatic actuation but instead generates low-key, non-imposing hints suggesting that the user perform specific actuating actions. We call the delivery of such hints “soft actuation” because the purpose of a hint is to trigger actuation, but the decision as well as the execution (if any) is left to the user, who becomes a part of the control loop. We also present results from an experiment that was performed in the wild, as part of the SmartSantander FP7/FIRE project, using the SmartCampus Internet of Things (IoT) testbed at the University of Surrey.