Embedded Tutorial ET4: Advanced Techniques for Programming Networked Embedded Systems

Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) are poised to play a pivotal role in engineering new solutions to a variety of societal-scale problems, such as energy conservation, climate change, healthcare, transportation, etc. Their importance is reflected in the overall theme for VLSI Design 2012, which is "Embedded Solutions for Emerging Markets Infrastructure, Energy, and Automotive." Networked embedded systems, such as wireless sensor networks, form a crucial building block for realizing large scale CPSs and have, therefore, received considerable research attention over the past few years. While this has resulted in numerous technological advances (e.g., a plethora of tiny, cheap, and low-power sensor platforms is now available), the problem of programming a distributed wireless sensor network still remains a major challenge and a potential show stopper to widespread adoption.