Despite the potential for transformative scientific and even social change that sensor networks seem to promise, their development is, at present, still nascent. A key impediment is the lack of development tools that enable the coherent design, efficient engineering, and effective deployment of sensor network systems.
This project fosters a new software development platform that combines multi-mode simulation, power and battery modeling, statistical characterization of radio behavior, and advanced compilation and program preparation strategies to provide a unified programming and debugging infrastructure. SENSIMIDE (Sensornet Simulation IDE) couples full-system, cycle-close, emulation of heterogenous devices with real-time measurements from active physical devices, to improve the fidelity of scalable ensemble simulations. A high-performance, cluster-based emulation environment executes sensornet operating systems and application code in real-time, without modification, making it possible for the user to move between execution on physical devices and in emulation transparently. In addition, SENSIMIDE instruments and actuates emulations at multiple levels of abstraction thereby affording users vital and novel debugging and performance inspection capabilities.
SENSIMIDE interfaces this capability with new compilation strategies and debugging support that provide the user with two new dimensions of flexibility. First users can program, instrument, and control ensembles of simultaneously executing sensors within the emulation system. Secondly, the emulation system accepts externally developed power, battery, and radio communication models as a way of promoting new systems level research in these important areas of study.
By delivering a comprehensive infrastructure for the development, debugging, and full-system analysis of sensornet software systems, SENSIMIDE lowers the barrier-to-entry for sensor network development and deployment while promoting new research into critical systems-level problems. The project PIs will disseminate SENSIMIDE to the wider sensor network research and educational communities via publication and prototype software.
