Braceforce: a middleware enabling novice programmers to integrate sensing in CPS applications
Xi Zheng, Dewayne E. Perry, Christine Julien · 2013
Even as the use of sensor networks to support CPS applications grows, our ability to seamlessly and effi-ciently incorporate sensor network capabilities remains astoundingly difficult. Today, accessing remote sensing data and integrating this data into the adaptive behav-ior of a dynamic user-facing CPS application requires in-teracting with multiple sensor platform languages, data formats, and communication channels and paradigms. We present BraceForce, an open and extensible middle-ware that allows developers to access the myriad remote sensing capabilities inherent to cyber-physical systems using very minimal code. Further, BraceForce incorpo-rates event- and model-driven data acquisition as first-class concepts to provide efficient access to sensing while retaining expressiveness and flexibility for applications. This paper presents the BraceForce middleware archi-tecture and key abstractions, describes their implemen-tations, and provides an empirical study using Brace-Force to support CPS applications.