Next Generation Embedded Systems

Embedded systems (ES) are application-specific, dedicated computing devices characterized by an intensive interaction with their physical environment. They observe different physical quantities through their sensors, provide complex computation and react to the world via their actuators. Networked ESs may fusion their information (e.g. sensor information) and cooperate in the execution of a joint collaborative task. The extreme communication speed and widespread access to the Internet allows a reformulation of the role of embedded systems. Our vision is a huge network composed of general purpose embedded systems, which share their knowledge, computation resources and interaction capabilities (actuators) to serve as execution platforms for many tasks allocated at run-time. Emerging user demands and tasks are dynamically decomposed and downloaded to the embedded systems on-the-fly without interrupting the already scheduled tasks. This requires high level modeling and knowledge description, appropriate configuration monitoring and resource management, and virtualization of both the embedded systems and sensors. Cloud computing is a favorite candidate for the provision of the extra computing power, storage and knowledge for moving the system design/deployment task from the traditional pre-operation design phase to the online operational phase.