Charles Consel

Leveraging software architectures to guide and verify the development of sense/compute/control applications

A software architecture describes the structure of a computing system by specifying software components and their interactions. Mapping a software architecture to an implementation is a well known challenge. A key element of this mapping is the architectures description of the data and control-flow interactions between components. The characterization of these interactions can be rather abstract or very concrete, providing more or less implementation guidance, programming support, and static verification. In this paper, we explore one point in the design space between abstract and concrete component interaction specifications. We introduce a notion of interaction contract that expresses allowed interactions between components, describing both data and control-flow constraints. This declaration is part of the architecture description, allows generation of extensive programming support, and enables various verifications. We instantiate our approach in an architecture description language for Sense/Compute/Control applications, and describe associated compilation and verification strategies

DSLs: the good, the bad, and the ugly

A resurging interest in domain-specific languages (DSLs) has identified the benefits to be realized from customized languages that provide a high-level of abstraction for specifying a problem concept in a particular domain. Although there has been much success reported by industry practitioners and academic researchers, there is much more work that is needed to enable further adoption of DSLs. The goal of this panel is to separate the hype from the true advantages that DSLs provide. The panel discussion will offer insight into the nature of DSL design, implementation, and application and summarize the collective experience of the panel in successful deployment of DSLs. As a counterpoint to the current benefits of DSLs, the panel will provide a fair and balanced assessment of the current state of the art of DSLs by pointing to the existing limitations and future work that is needed to take the concept of DSLs to further heights. The assembled panelists are experts in the research and practice of DSLs and represent diverse views and backgrounds. The panel is made up of industrial researchers, commercial tool vendors, and academic researchers. The panelists have different perspectives on the technical concerns of DSLs; for example, half of the panelists are proponents of textual DSLs and the other half of the panel has experience in graphical notations representing visual languages.

A Taxonomy-Driven Approach to Visually Prototyping Pervasive Computing Applications

Various forms of pervasive computing environments are being deployed in an increasing number of areas including healthcare, home automation, and military. This evolution makes the development of pervasive computing applications challenging because it requires to manage a range of heterogeneous entities with a wide variety of functionalities. n nThis paper presents Pantagruel, an approach to integrating a taxonomical description of a pervasive computing environment into a visual programming language. A taxonomy describes the relevant entities of a given pervasive computing area and serves as a parameter to a sensor-controller-actuator development paradigm. The orchestration of area-specific entities is supported by high-level constructs, customized with respect to taxonomical information. n nWe have implemented a visual environment to develop taxonomies and orchestration rules. Furthermore, we have developed a compiler for Pantagruel and successfully used it for applications in various pervasive computing areas, such as home automation and building management.

A step-wise approach for integrating QoS throughout software development

When developing real-time systems such as avionics software, it is critical to ensure the performance of these systems. In general, deterministic Quality of Service (QoS) is guaranteed by the execution platform, independently of a particular application. For example, in the avionics domain, the ARINC 664 standard defines a data network that provides deterministic QoS guarantees. However, this strategy falls short of addressing how the QoS requirements of an application get transformed through all development phases and artifacts. Existing approaches provide support for QoS concerns that only cover part of the development process, preventing traceability. n nIn this paper, we propose a declarative approach for specifying QoS requirements that covers the complete software development process, from the requirements analysis to the deployment. This step-wise approach is dedicated to control-loop systems such as avionics software. The domainspecific trait of this approach enables the stakeholders to be guided and ensures QoS requirements traceability via a tool-based methodology.

Taxonomy-driven prototyping of home automation applications: A novice-programmer visual language and its evaluation

Home automation environments are dedicated to helping users in their everyday life and are being deployed in an increasing number of areas, including home security, energy consumption, and assisted living. The range of situations to be addressed makes the development of home automation applications challenging: it requires to manage heterogeneous entities with a wide variety of functionalities. Moreover, since this area covers a large spectrum of user needs, it is crucial to ease the development and the evolution of these applications. This paper presents Pantagruel, an expressive and accessible approach to integrating a taxonomical description of a home automation environment into a visual programming language. A taxonomy describes the relevant entities of a given home automation area and serves as a parameter to a sensor-controller-actuator development paradigm. The orchestration of area-specific entities is supported by high-level constructs, customized with respect to taxonomical information. We have implemented a visual environment that integrates a taxonomical approach in the development of orchestration rules. Furthermore, we have developed a compiler for Pantagruel and successfully used it to test applications in various areas related to orchestration development for the domain of home automation. Finally, we have successfully evaluated the usability of Pantagruel through a user study performed with 18 novice programmers.

SIP as a Universal Communication Bus: A Methodology and an Experimental Study

This paper describes a methodology and a programming support that use the SIP protocol as a universal communication bus in pervasive computing environments. In doing so, our work enables homogeneous communications between heterogeneous distributed entities. We present a classification of a wide variety of entities in terms of features, capabilities and network connectors. Based on this classification, a methodology and a programming support are described for connecting entities on the SIP communication bus. This work has been validated by applications using the SIP communication bus to coordinate widely varying entities, including serial-based sensors (RS232, 1-Wire), ZigBee devices, X10 devices, PDA, native SIP entities, and software components.

Verification of daily activities of older adults: a simple, non-intrusive, low-cost approach

This paper presents an approach to verifying the activities of daily living of older adults at their home. We verify activities, instead of inferring them, because our monitoring approach is driven by routines, initially sketched by users in their environment. Monitoring is supported by a lightweight sensor infrastructure, comprising non-intrusive, low-cost, wireless devices. Verification is performed by applying a simple formula to sensor log data, for each activity of interest. The result value determines whether an activity has been performed.n We have conducted an experimental study to validate our approach. To do so, four participants have been monitored during five days at their home, equipped with sensors. When applied to the log data, our formulas were able to automatically verify that a list of activities were performed. They produced the same interpretations, using Signal Detection Theory, as a third party, manually analyzing the log data.

DiaSim: A Simulator for Pervasive Computing Applications

Pervasive computing applications involve both software concerns, such as any software system, and integration concerns, for the constituent networked devices of the pervasive computing environment. This situation is problematic for testing because it requires acquiring, testing, and interfacing a variety of software and hardware entities. This process can rapidly become costly and time‐consuming when the target environment involves many entities.

Orchestrating masses of sensors: a design-driven development Approach

This paper proposes a design-driven development approach that is dedicated to the domain of orchestration of masses of sensors. The developer declares what an application does using a domain-specific language (DSL). Our compiler processes domain-specific declarations to generate a customized programming framework that guides and supports the programming phase.

A case for human-driven software development

Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) plays a critical role in software systems, especially when targeting vulnerable individuals (e.g., assistive technologies). However, there exists a gap between well-tooled software development methodologies and HCI techniques, which are generally isolated from the development toolchain and require specific expertise. In this paper, we propose a human-driven software development methodology making User Interface (UI) a full-fledged dimension of software design. To make this methodology useful in practice, a UI design language and a user modeling language are integrated into a tool suite that guides the stakeholders during the development process, while ensuring the conformance between the UI design and its implementation.