Cooperative Computing in Sensor Networks

We envision that during the next decade the advances in technology will make sensor networks more powerful. Therefore, they will become part of a larger class of networks of embedded systems that have sufficient computing, communication, and energy resources to support distributed applications. The current software architectures and programming models are not suitable for these new computing environments. We present a distributed computing model, Cooperative Computing, and the Smart Messages software architecture for programming large networks of embedded systems. In Cooperative Computing, distributed applications are dynamic collections of migratory execution units, called SmartMessages, working to achieve a common goal. Virtually, any userdefined distributed application can be implemented using ourmodel. To illustrate this flexibility, we describe the implementation, using Smart Messages, of two previously proposed applications for sensor networks, SPIN and Directed Diffusion. The simulation results for these applications together with micro-benchmark results for our prototype implementation demonstrate that Cooperative Computing is a viable solution for programming networks of embedded systems.