Luca Mottola's Home Page

Research

The next computing revolution is about to happen. We will equip persons and everyday objects with networked embedded devices able to sense from individuals and the surrounding context, and to act on the environment to accomplish complex high-level goals. As these devices coordinate among themselves and integrate with existing computing infrastructures, we will effectively create an Internet of Things (IoT) that will improve society and quality of life. Nevertheless, should the vision of 50 billion of Internet-connected devices become a reality, most of today's software development methodologies, abstractions, languages, and tools will need to be re-considered.

In this context, my current focus is on Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), a fundamental component in the IoT, but I have also been active in the area of pervasive and mobile computing. I am (or was) also involved in several funded projects, as described next.

Wireless Sensor Networks

My research activity in WSNs has initially concentrated on the design, implementation, and evaluation of programming abstractions. Indeed, developing distributed applications for WSNs still requires abilities that domain-experts are typically not provided with. Therefore, high-level programming abstractions are needed to manage complexity and hide distribution.

My contributions in this field include the Logical Neighborhood abstraction and the TeenyLIME middleware. In 2007, I received the Best Demo Award at ACM SENSYS, the flagship event in WSN research, with a demonstration based on Logical Neighborhoods. In addition, G.P. Picco and I prepared an extensive tutorial on WSN programming, based on a comprehensive survey paper. In total, more than a hundred researchers and practitioners attended the tutorial at different prestigious venues. My Ph.D. thesis, which includes the above contributions as well as several follow-up works, was given the EWSN/CONET Best Ph.D. Thesis Award in 2009.

Then, I extensively worked on real-world deployments where my programming systems have been used to implement reliable and efficient WSNs. Particularly, the Torre Aquila deployment and the TRITon project are entirely based on the TeenyLIME middleware. In 2009, the work on Torre Aquila received the Best Paper Award at ACM/IEEE IPSN/SPOTS. The program committee recognized the system as one of the few examples where high-level abstractions are used in a real-world setting.

Over the years, I further broadened the scope of my WSN research. My most recent publications reflect the range of topics currently under investigation, motivated by the increased understanding that WSN research requires a multi-disciplinary, cross-layer approach. In this context, while continuing to work in the field of WSN programming; e.g., with the Squirrel abstractions, I am also tackling issues in static verification of sensor network software; for example, with the Anquiro tool, and in distributed algorithms and theory. At the same time, I am also looking into problems related to low-power communications, as well as the design and optimization of MAC protocols.

Pervasive and Mobile Computing

Pervasive applications are based on loosely coupled interactions and evolvable, mobile environments. In this field, my research has essentially tackled two complementary challenges.

On one hand, I have looked at the design and validation of these systems. Indeed, the behavior of single components is easy to validate, but it is hard to understand how the global federation behaves. To address this issue, I have explored the development of domain-specific model checkers, whereby it is possible to achieve fine-grained models of the underlying communication infrastructure without incurring in state explosion problems. The Loupe model checker adopts this approach to enable accurate and efficient verification of applications built on top of Publish-Subscribe architectures.

On the other hand, I have also worked in the field of content-based routing in mobile environments. Such technology is indeed a fundamental building block for pervasive and mobile applications. My contributions in this field include routing and topology maintenance mechanisms. More information can be found in the publications page.

Main Funded Projects - Current

makeSense:
Easy Programming of Integrated Wireless Sensor Networks.

Sensor networks are expected to play a critical role in the next computing revolution. However, industry adoption is hampered because sensor networks are currently very difficult to program. The EU-funded makeSense project intends to drastically improve the ease of wireless sensor network programming by allowing programmers to express high-level objectives and leave the low-level details to the compiler and run-time system. In makeSense, I'm leading the workpackage on the makeSense run-time system.

CONET:
Cooperating Objects Network of Excellence.

The EU-funded CONET consortium is working on building a strong community in the area of Cooperating Objects including research, public sector and industry partners from the areas of embedded systems, pervasive computing, and wireless sensor networks. In CONET, I lead the research cluster on Deployment and Management of Cooperating Objects (DMCO).

Promos:
Sensor Network Programming Made Easy.

The adoption of wireless sensor networks is hampered because sensor network programming is exceedingly difficult: developers need to focus on low-level details and it is difficult to express high-level goals. The SSF-funded Promos project aims at raising the abstraction level and let the developer deal with application-level goals and logic, and let the run-time system optimize the low-level mechanisms for a given performance target.

Main Funded Projects - Past

TRITon:
Trentino Research and Innovation for Tunnel Monitoring.

TRITon is a research and innovation project funded by the project members and the Autonomous Province of Trento (Provincia Autonoma di Trento), aimed at improving safety and reduce energy costs in road tunnels. An example application is adaptive lighting. In current deployments, the light intensity is regulated regardless of the actual environmental conditions. This potentially determines a waste of energy, as well as a potential safety hazard. In TRITon, the light intensity inside the tunnel will instead be regulated through a wireless sensor network. This will relay sensed light information to the control station, which will perform fine-grained control of the light intensity.

RUNES:
Reconfigurable Ubiquitous Networked Embedded Systems.

The EU-funded RUNES integrated project has a vision to enable the creation of large-scale, widely distributed, heterogeneous networked embedded systems that inter-operate and adapt to their environments. The inherent complexity of such systems must be simplified for programmers if the full potential for networked embedded systems is to be realised. The widespread use of network embedded systems also requires a standardised architecture which allows self-organisation to suit a changeable environment.