Impala: a middleware system for managing autonomic, parallel sensor systems

Sensor networks are long-running computer systems with many sensing/compute nodes working to gather information about their environment, process and fuse that information, and in some cases, actuate control mechanisms in response. Like traditional parallel systems, communication between nodes is of fundamental importance, but is typically accomplished via wireless transceivers. One further key attribute of sensor networks is that they are almost always long-running systems, intended to operate in situ, with minimal direct human intervention, for months or years. This requirement for long-running autonomy mandates careful design of the runtime system that manages applications on each node, to ensure reliability and ease of upgrades over the life of the system. This paper describes Impala, a middleware architecture that enables application modularity, adaptivity, and repairability in wireless sensor networks. Impala allows software updates to be received via the node’s wireless transc...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2003
• Where: PPOPP
• Authors: Ting Liu, Margaret Martonosi
• Keywords: Distributed And Parallel Computing, Impala, Mobile Sensor, PPOPP 2003, Sensor Networks