ICSE 2012 Workshops
2012 34th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE)
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2012 Third International Workshop on Software Engineering for Sensor Network Applications (SESENA), June 2, 2012, Zurich, Switzerland

SESENA 2012 – Proceedings

Contents - Abstracts - Authors

Third International Workshop on Software Engineering for Sensor Network Applications (SESENA)

Preface

Title Page


Foreword
This volume contains the proceedings of SESENA 2012, the third in a series of workshops devoted to software engineering for sensor network applications. The workshop took place in Zurich (Switzerland) on June 2, 2012 in conjunction with the International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE). Its objective was to discuss current work and future directions in software engineering for sensor network applications.

Modeling and Analysis
Sat, Jun 2, 11:00 - 12:30 (Chair: Vittorio Cortellessa)

A Model-Driven Engineering Framework for Architecting and Analysing Wireless Sensor Networks
Krishna Doddapaneni, Enver Ever, Orhan Gemikonakli, Ivano Malavolta, Leonardo Mostarda, and Henry Muccini
(Middlesex University, UK; University of L'Aquila, Italy)
A Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is composed of distributed sensors with limited processing capabilities and energy restrictions. These unique attributes pose new chal- lenges amongst which prolonging the WSN lifetime is one of the most important. Challenges are often tackled by a code- and-fix process that relies on low-level hardware and software information.
Recently, the need of abstracting an implementation view into an architectural design is getting more realized. A clear separation of concerns is needed since hardware and software aspects are locked and tied down to specific types of nodes, hampering the possibility of reuse across projects and organiza- tions. This means that exploiting the right level of abstraction, and keeping explicit (and separated) software and hardware architectural details will surely ease developers’ job.
In this paper we propose a modeling framework that allows developers to model separately the software architecture of the WSN, the low-level hardware specification of the WSN nodes and the physical environment where nodes are deployed in. The framework can use these models to generate executable code for analysis purposes. In this paper we focus on energy consumption analysis.

Drop the Phone and Talk to the Physical World: Programming the Internet of Things with Erlang
Alessandro Sivieri, Luca Mottola, and Gianpaolo Cugola
(Politecnico di Milano, Italy)
We present ELIoT an Erlang-based development framework expressly conceived for heterogeneous and massively decentralized sensing/actuation systems: a vision commonly regarded as the "Internet of Things". We choose Erlang due to the functional high-level programming model and the native support for concurrency and distributed programming. Both are assets when developing applications as well as system-level functionality in our target domain. Our design enriches the Erlang framework with a custom library for programming sensing/actuation distributed systems along with a dedicated run-time support, while we wipe off unnecessary language and run-time features. We couple the resulting platform with ad-hoc tools for simulation and testing, supporting developers throughout the development cycle. We assess our solution by implementing three sensor network distributed protocols. A comparison with traditional sensor network programming platforms demonstrates the advantages in terms of terseness of code, readability, and maintainability.

Formal Analysis of Policies in Wireless Sensor Network Applications
Marco Patrignani, Nelson Matthys, José Proença, Danny Hughes, and Dave Clarke
(KU Leuven, Belgium)
Since wireless sensor network applications are ever growing in scale and complexity, managers require strong formal guarantees that any changes done to the system can be enacted safely. This paper presents the formalisation and analysis of the semantics of policies, tiny software artefacts used to orchestrate a wireless sensor network application. The semantics of policies is formalised in terms of traces augmented with information concerning the constraints under which traces are executed. These traces are composed according to the network topology and subsequently analysed using the mCRL2 model- checking tool. The analysis allows for the detection of semantical inconsistencies that may lead to dangerous or unwanted behaviour of the application based on the policy configuration. An analysis of policies in a real-world system is provided, showing how to verify security and resource usage properties.

Case Studies on the Development of Wireless Sensor Network Applications Using Multiple Abstraction Levels
Ryo Shimizu, Kenji Tei, Yoshiaki Fukazawa, and Shinichi Honiden
(Waseda University, Japan; National Institute of Informatics, Japan; University of Tokyo, Japan)
Model-driven development (MDD) facilitates the development of wireless sensor network (WSN) applications because MDD can deal with models at the abstraction level to the concrete level. In the MDD for WSN applications, the developers model the dataflow at the abstract level and model the designs of a communication and task assignment at the concrete level. In our previous work we proposed a MDD process for WSN applications with three domain specific languages (DSLs). However, we did not sufficiently evaluate the description capabilities of our DSLs. For that reason, we report case studies on real-world applications to prove the feasibility of our approach. Our DSL can be used to describe both the application logic and design decisions concerning the quality of data, which are adopted in target applications. Additionally, we demonstrate the effectiveness of the DSLs at multiple abstraction levels.

A User-Centric Approach to Wireless Sensor Network Programming Languages
Atis Elsts and Leo Selavo
(University of Latvia, Latvia)
Wireless sensor networks is likely to remain a niche technology until an easy-to-use programming interface for a broad range of users is offered. In this paper we sketch SEAL, a domain-specific language for WSN application description. The target audience of our work is domain experts with limited programming skills. We believe this user group previously has not received enough attention from WSN programming language designers.

Middleware and Applications
Sat, Jun 2, 14:00 - 15:30 (Chair: Luca Mottola)

Building Portable Middleware Services for Heterogeneous Cyber-Physical Systems
Kirill Mechitov and Gul Agha
(University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA)
Software development in wireless sensor networks has traditionally focused on stand-alone applications statically linked with the operating system code, and relying on fixed models for scheduling, synchronization, and resource allocation. Middleware services and network protocols, are usually considered to be part of the operating system. As the number of available WSN platforms and operating systems grows, and the emergence of cyber-physical systems results in the creation of networks of hetrogeneous devices (sensor nodes, microcontrollers, mobile devices, etc.), portability and interoperation emerge as major considerations in the software development process. We propose breaking the tight integration between middleware services and the operating system. We demonstrate how adopting a service-oriented computing approach to WSN middleware services improves portability and enables the creation of heterogeneous sensor networks and cyber-physical systems. The adoption of a service-oriented architecture does not necessarily translate into a significant loss of performance. An extremely light-weight and flexible method for local and remote service interaction is proposed.

Toward a Collaboration Model for Smart Spaces
Chao Chen, Sumi Helal, Scott de Deugd, Andy Smith, and Carl K. Chang
(University of Florida, USA; IBM, USA; Iowa State University, USA)
Developing and deploying a pervasive space is a multi-disciplined process where knowledge from various domains intersects. How can individual roles efficiently contribute their expertise and smoothly integrate their work to create a pervasive space? How does system design and architecture enable effective decoupling of these roles? Based on our own experience in building several pervasive systems including the Gator Tech Smart House (GTSH), this paper discusses a collaboration model that allows multiple roles, working together, to design, develop, and maintain pervasive systems in physical spaces such as homes and buildings. The paper first introduces each role in the model with its designated resources and responsibilities. It then explains the collaboration model and shows how it can be applied in real-world deployments. This paper does not claim to provide an ultimate solution to a well-defined problem. Rather, it attempts to define an increasingly important problem and provides an installment of thoughts toward solutions. We hope the paper raises awareness to the importance of this subject and leads to a productive discussion during and following the workshop.

Service Descriptions and Linked Data for Integrating WSNs into Enterprise IT
Matthias Thoma, Klaus Sperner, and Torsten Braun
(SAP Research, Switzerland; University of Bern, Switzerland)
This paper presents our ongoing work on enterprise IT integration of sensor networks based on the idea of service descriptions and applying linked data principles to them. We argue that using linked service descriptions facilitates a better integration of sensor nodes into enterprise IT systems and allows SOA principles to be used within the enterprise IT and within the sensor network itself.

Unified Service Access for Wireless Sensor Networks
Jukka Suhonen, Olli Kivelä, Teemu Laukkarinen, and Marko Hännikäinen
(Tampere University of Technology, Finland)
Sensor networks enable large scale and fine resolution monitoring via interconnected sensor devices that range from home appliances and mobile phones to dedicated sensing platforms. While new wireless technologies are emerging, the challenge is in the interpretation and utilization of heterogeneous data received through varying types of interfaces. This paper presents a unified service access architecture, interfaces, and message formats for Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) collectively referred to as WSN OpenAPI. It supports sensor data collection, actuator control, real-time alerts based on sensor values, and querying measurement and alert history. Compared to the related work, WSN OpenAPI allows efficient machine-to-machine (M2M) communications with low complexity message formats and avoiding extensive queries with publish/subscribe paradigm.

Towards a Principled and Evolvable Approach to Software Development for Future Wireless Sensor Networks
Michael R. Poppleton and Geoff V. Merrett
(University of Southampton, UK)
Due to the operational demands and requirements diversity in wireless sensor networks (WSNs), great improvements in the software engineering process are required. As WSNs increasingly become essential, even critical, components in systems-of-systems (SoSs), the case for verification in the development process is strong. In this position paper we present our vision for a principled formal software development and verification process for WSNs within SoSs.

The ERC Vision Project
Sat, Jun 2, 16:00 - 17:10 (Chair: Kay Roemer)

IPv4 Wireless Multimedia Sensor Networks
Samuela Persia and Dajana Cassioli
(Fondazione Ugo Bordoni, Italy; University of L'Aquila, Italy)
The acquisition and distribution of multimedia content, such as still images, audio and video streams, are the new frontier of wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Scalar data WSNs commonly rely on the IEEE 802.15.4 standard that defines suitable physical and medium access control layers, whereas wireless multimedia sensor networks (WMSNs) need advanced architectures able to maintain a predetermined level of quality of service (QoS). In this paper, we analyze the potential of the combination of IPv4 and the IEEE 802.15.4 standard, if employed in the innovative VISION's architecture for WMSNs, designed to support real-time video streaming. We implement IPv4 at the network (NWK) layer, because it is the most suitable protocol to guarantee the interoperability among heterogeneous networks, hence it easily allows the remote access to the WMSN's content. Suitable protocols for network management will provide the relevant performance parameters to the QoS engine of the VISION's architecture that will enable the full adaptability of nodes to the context. Since the main QoS requirements for real time video streaming are the maximum tolerable end-to-end delay and packet loss, our performance evaluation focuses on the analysis of latency and transmitted frames, in the presence of different traffic sources. We also measure the power consumption of WMSN's nodes for the video streaming service.

Model-Driven Agent Generation Approach for Adaptable and Resource-Aware Sensor Node
Antinisca Di Marco, Stefano Pace, Stefano Marchesani, and Luigi Pomante
(University of L'Aquila, Italy)
A Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is a versatile sensing system whose hardware resources are scarce and have to be carefully used and hence adapted to face with their context and resources changing. Moreover, WSN could be used in unreachable or dangerous places, hence their adaptation should be remotely managed. In this paper, we propose a model-driven approach able to generate agents governing the sensor node in a WSN. The generation is automatic and the obtained agents are sent to the sensor nodes and executed over a mobile agents based middleware (i.e. a virtual machine). In this way, the sensor node logics can be automatically adapted without experiencing (from the user or the remaining system) service interruption. The approach will be developed in the VISION infrastructure to bridge the QoS management and the sensor nodes to guarantee best quality of service in case of context and resource changes.

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