CAREER: Software Hardware Architecture Co-Design for Smart Environment Operation and Management

"Internet-of-Things" (IoT) embedded with sensing, actuation, computing, communication and storage resources are expected to transform our homes, offices, neighborhoods and communities into "smart environment", providing novel functions, services and creating potential economic impacts in trillions. Despite recent booming IoT business, there is a lack of foundational software/hardware architecture suitable for fine grained access, performance assurances and management critically demanded in smart environment. This research takes a principled approach to design and develop such a software/hardware architecture serving as a foundation for future IoT technology and applications, thus alleviating some of the critical technical obstacles impeding the trillions of economic potentials in diverse IoT applications. The PI will collaborate with the police and industry partners for technology pilots to assist officers for agile emergency response in their daily duties, and seniors to age at home with improved life quality. Students from Ph.D., M.S., to undergraduate and high school levels will be involved and trained during the research. Outreach to K-12 and local communities will leverage the research prototypes for science projects and maker's clubs to foster a culture of technology and innovation. This research promotes smart object command operations as first class citizens. It will develop software/hardware architecture and systems firmly rooted in flexible, fine-grained access, command execution assurances and scalable management demanded in smart environment. States and information related to access constraints are bundled into self-sufficient and self-protected command data units. The research will explore and develop mechanisms to ensure formal IoT command execution properties; essential hardware traffic forwarding and security functions to ensure low latency and protection of IoT operations; and configuration, monitoring, maintenance essential in smart environment management.