A reconfigurable component model with semantic type system for dynamic WSN applications

Abstract

Abstract Runtime reconfigurable component models provide several attractions with regard to the management of wireless sensor network (WSN) applications operating in dynamic environments and under evolving application requirements. One such attraction is the runtime discovery of suitable components for reuse in changing application compositions. Syntactic interface typing, provided by contemporary component models, however only supports exact interface matching. This causes limited reuse of components and complicates management of WSN applications. We argue that more flexibility is required to efficiently manage the complex, large-scale and dynamic WSN deployments of the future. In this paper, we describe the addition of semantic service descriptions to component interfaces to support compatibility and subtype testing. This allows rich discovery and reuse of third-party functionality and reasoning at the level of equivalent service types. We report on the incorporation of these semantic interface definitions in the Loosely Coupled Component Infrastructure (LooCI). Evaluation thereof shows that the scheme imposes minimal computational and memory overhead, while significantly reducing the complexity and cost of reconfiguration.