CPS: Medium: Making Cloud Computing Sense, Act, and Move (SAM)
Lead PI:
Raja Sengupta
Co-PI:
Abstract
This project takes the paradigm of cloud computing developed in the cyber-world and puts it into the physical world, to create a cyber-physical computing cloud, SAM-C. Unlike conventional cloud computing, SAM-C servers move in space, meaning, they are vehicles with physical constraints. The server vehicles also have sensors and actuators to create a way to re-organize mobile sensor networks in the paradigm of cloud computing. The project envisions an industry offering sensing as a service provided by the cloud. To enable this new service, the project extends the virtual machine instance fundamental to cloud computing with one new property -- virtual speed. The research terms this augmented entity a virtual vehicle and develops the theories, algorithms and protocols to realize many virtual vehicles over a network of real vehicle servers at scale. This research impacts the cloud computing industry by providing tools and theories it can use to leverage the many possible mobile server hosts in our society, e.g., cars, planes, people, and emerging vehicles like Unmanned Air Vehicles or drifters. It impacts mobile sensor networks by shifting them from an artifact built for an application to a service provided by a cloud. The inter-disciplinary research team spanning computer science, civil, and mechanical engineering impacts graduate and undergraduate teaching in systems, computer science, and control theory. The project guides K-12 students to build simple electric airplanes with sensors for greenhouse gas measurement thereby introducing young users of computation to cyber-physical cloud computing.
Performance Period: 09/01/2011 - 08/31/2016
Institution: University of California-Berkeley
Sponsor: National Science Foundation
Award Number: 1136141