Spatio-Temporal Communication Primitives for Delay Tolerant Systems

Computing and communication devices pervasively sur- round our daily life and the presence of embedded systems, including tiny sensors, is increasing exponentially. However, the software and communication mechanisms used to network these devices are still the ones that we have been devised 30 years ago for standard computer systems. Different communication and coordination patterns are emerging for these environments, ranging from those related to delay tolerant systems [3], where communication happens asynchronously between devices, to location based communication, where hosts receive information only when they are in a specific location. In these environments, several concepts, not captured by the semantics of the programming interfaces of traditional systems, such as location or temporal validity of the disseminated and replicated information, are fundamental.

In this paper we propose a novel set of communication primitives for this kind of systems that would allow developers to better exploit the potential of these environments. These primitives combine spatial and temporal concerns to cope with the dynamics and mobility of pervasive systems. We also discuss a middleware framework that implements the proposed programming interface.