Softwares

The SensLab platform is distributed among 4 sites and will be composed of 1,024 nodes. Each location will host 256 sensor nodes with specific characteristics in order to offer a wide spectrum of possibilities and heterogeneity. The one of Lille offers mobile nodes. The four test beds will however be part of a common global test bed as several nodes will have global connectivity such that it will be possible to experiment a given application on all 1K sensors at the same time.

SensLab is a unique scientific tool for the research on wireless sensor networks. SensLab's main and most important goal is to offer an accurate and efficient scientific tool to help in the design, development, tuning, and experimentation of real large-scale sensor network applications.

Initial goal of Java was to allow high level software development on small devices. Eventually it found success and promotion with software deployment on the Web, and more recently as a solution for huge enterprise servers and massive parallel computing. Today small targets are still supported, but with dedicated (Java-like) APIs and VMs. These specific technologies dramatically restrain the context in which Java applications can be deployed.

JITS focuses on these technologies and on enhancements to allow the use of a real Java Runtime Environment and a Java Virtual Machine everywhere by targeting tiny devices such as SmartCards (see smartcards (hardware and software) survey). These devices usually don't use a Virtual Machine layer over an OS, but expect the Virtual Machine to be the OS. This is possible thanks to the JVM features which can be presented as a specific hardware abstraction for most of them.

The Camille operating system (a dedicated exo-kernel) aims at supporting the various hardware resources used in smart cards, without specializing abstractions. The architecture principle is very similar to the MIT Exo-Kernel principles and concepts. The Camille OS provides the following three basic characteristics. Portability is inherited from the use of an intermediate code and by a limited set of hardware primitives. Security is ensured by a code-safety checking (which uses a PCC-like algorithm) at loading time. Extensibility is provided through a simple representation of the hardware that at the root of the system does not predefine any abstraction. Thus, applications have to build or import abstractions which match their requirements.

STAN is a Java abstract analyser that allows static alias analysis and checking of information flow. Moreover, STAN targets small systems, like embedded systems. The STAN tool statically checks already compiled source code and annotates the .class files with verifiable signatures at loading time. STAN is dedicated to embedded systems and adapted to their constraints, supports mobile code, easy to use.