CS 598TAR, Fall 2005
CS 598TAR, Fall 2005

Deeply Embedded Computing in Sensor Networks:
Challenges and Paradigms

Syllabus

Schedule

Reading List

Final Exam (due by 11:59pm, 12/16, by e-mail)

Projects

Announcements

Introduction

This class is designed to give students appreciation of the most important systems challenges in the area of sensor networks with emphasis on the application layer. The class is primarily paper-reading. It is divided into four main parts; (i) a brief introduction to the sensor networks vision, (ii) a description and classification of applications, (iii) a list of major needed distributed services for sensor networks, and (iv) a description of new computing paradigms tailored for sensor network application development. The course concludes with open challenges and directions for future research.

The rationale for this organization is as follows. The first part is designed to familiarize you with the idea of sensor networks; why they evolved, and what the future vision is. The second part describes the different ways sensor networks are currently used (or going to be used in the very near future). These current and soon-to-be-deployed applications drive the bulk of the challenges and programming abstractions discussed in the rest of the course. They suggest a suite of distributed services the need for which commonly arises in different application scenarios. Such services are identified and described in the next part of this course. A strong case is also made that application development in sensor networks requires a new computing paradigm for interfacing with the programmer. A suite of currently explored paradigms is then described. Finally, a discussion of open issues is conducted. For more information, please see the list of reading material for the course.