Embedded, Everywhere A Research Agenda for Networked Systems of Embedded Computers (2001) / Chapter Skim
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Executive Summary
Executive Summary
Pages 1-13
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, combining information from sensors on and within a person with information from laboratory tests and other sources; and EmNets will dramatically affect scientific data collection capabilities, ranging from new techniques for precision agriculture and biotechnological research to detailed environmental and pollution monitoring.
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In contrast to the Internet, which still consists primarily of tethered devices, EmNet components are likely to be small, untethered devices operating under physical constraints such as limited energy and the need for adequate heat dissipation. EmNets will also be constrained by bandwidth and memory limitations.
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The many pieces of such a system will of necessity be heterogeneous, not only in form but also in function. There may be subsystems that communicate to consumers in private vehicles, others that relay information from emergency vehicles to synchronize traffic lights, still others that provide traffic data and analysis to highway engineers, and perhaps some that communicate to law enforcement.
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Current work in distributed systems has not solved the problem of systems operating under the constraints that networked systems of embedded computers will experience, particularly with respect to computational resources, communication limitations, and energy restrictions. Self-configuration is the process of interconnecting available elements into an ensemble that will perform the required functions at the desired performance level.
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, they will assume the availability and proper functioning of EmNets. But in contrast to those utility services, EmNets will be deployed in situ, often without the dedicated expert service and maintenance associated with utilities, making the trustworthiness of EmNets triply difficult: EmNets are real-world systems, often directly affected by wind, weather, and interference; they must embody the redundancy needed for dependability without compromising the basic economics, and they must adequately and safely convey to a nonexpert user how much of that redundancy is available (thereby determining the system's safety margins)
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Several safety topics deserve further research effort, including hazard analysis for EmNets, validating requirements, designing for and verifying safety, and ensuring safety in upgraded hardware. Security is difficult to achieve in virtually all information systems, but EmNets again present particular challenges.
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Understanding the way people create mental models of the systems they use and interact with is a good way for designers to begin to address the issues of usability and manageability. In particular, more research is needed in designing for a range of persons including system administrators, users who are explicitly operating the EmNet, and persons who are interacting with objects in their environment without explicit knowledge of the system behind them and in enhancing mental models and user training.
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Related to wireless are the issues surrounding geolocation technology. Unlike conventional computer networks, which are more dependent on the relative positioning of elements in a network topology, EmNets are often inextricably tied to the physical world (a primary purpose often being to measure and control physical-world attributes or objects)
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The committee generated eight overarching themes that intersect the three key areas for research described above (self-configuration and adaptive coordination, trustworthiness, and computational models)
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Indeed, EmNets will be incredibly important and have tremendous implications for almost all aspects of defense activities, from battlespace monitoring and coordination to asset monitoring to logistics. EmNets will support
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Follow-on programs even beyond the ones described above will be critical. DARPA should aggressively pursue programs that build upon and interact with one another's intellectual contributions and with some of the seed programs that have already begun explorations in related areas.
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The National Science Foundation should continue to expand mechanisms for encouraging systems-oriented multi-investigator, collaborative, multidisciplinary research on EmNets. NSF can facilitate collaborative multidisciplinary research both through the programs it supports and through the use of a flexible process that encourages the incorporation of perspectives from a broad range of disciplines.
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These and other federal agencies should coordinate their EmNet-related development efforts with the programs at DARPA, NSF, and NIST to ensure that open-platform systems of various scales, low-power components and their software drivers, debugging techniques and software, and traffic generators can all be shared among research programs when applicable, avoiding redundancy in those parts of the system where there is more certainty. It is expected that this sharing and associated coordination needs can be supported by the various organizations and groups associated with federal information technology research and development.
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