Cyber-Physical Cloud Computing

Abstract:

We are focused on theoretical work exploring how ideas successful in cloud computing can help CPS at scale. We have two products. One is the “Virtual Vehicle” and the other the “BigActor Model.” The first is a mobile counterpart of the virtual machine. There is a tension between the openness of systems, unavoidable in any system at scale, and performance guarantees. We study how the laws of large numbers can relieve this tension in large mobile sensor networks, by borrowing the idea of virtualization from cloud computing in the form of the Virtual Vehicle. The second product, the BigActor model, is a programming model for the ubiquitous computing machine at scale. Unlike the Von Neumann machine, the ubiquitous computing machine may change as its program executes. We also promote the location and connectivity of entities to first-­‐class concepts. This may better serve engineers programming ubiquitous computing networks. These two explorations have led to the BigActor model.