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TinyGALS: A programming model for event-driven embedded systems

  • Elaine Cheong*
  • , Judy Liebman
  • , Jie Liu
  • , Feng Zhao
  • *Corresponding author for this work
  • University of California at Berkeley
  • Palo Alto Research Center

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

Networked embedded systems such as wireless sensor networks are usually designed to be event-driven so that they are reactive and power efficient, Programming embedded systems with multiple reactive tasks is difficult due to the complex nature of managing the concurrency of execution threads and consistency of shared states. This paper describes a globally asynchronous and locally synchronous model (TinyGALS) for programming event-driven embedded systems. Software components are composed locally through synchronous method calls to form modules, and asynchronous message passing is used between modules to separate the flow of control. In addition, a guarded yet synchronous model (TinyGUYS) is designed to allow thread-safe sharing of global state by multiple modules without explicitly passing messages. This programming model is structured such that all asynchronous message passing code and module triggering mechanisms can be automatically generated from a high-level specification. We have implemented the programming model and code generation facilities on a wireless sensor network platform known as the Berkeley motes. As an example, we have redesigned a multi-hop ad hoc communication protocol using the TinyGALS model.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationSAC 2003
Subtitle of host publicationProceedings of the 2003 ACM symposium on Applied computing
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery (ACM)
Pages698-704
Number of pages7
ISBN (Print)9781581136241
StatePublished - 2003
Externally publishedYes
Event18th Annual ACM Symposium on Applied Computing, SAC 2003 - Melbourne, FL, United States
Duration: 9 Mar 200312 Mar 2003

Publication series

NameProceedings of the ACM Symposium on Applied Computing

Conference

Conference18th Annual ACM Symposium on Applied Computing, SAC 2003
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityMelbourne, FL
Period9/03/0312/03/03

Keywords

  • Code generation
  • Embedded systems
  • Globally synchronous and locally asynchronous
  • Programming models
  • Sensor network

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