Grant: Collaborative Research and Development Grants

As computing becomes more and more prevalent in our daily lives, in the form of the Internet of Things (IoT), it is important to provide unified abstractions and interfaces to allow IoT devices to talk to each other seamlessly. Rather than invent yet another protocol or abstraction, the world wide web, with its HTTP protocol and the use of JavaScript language, offers a convenient and mature set of technologies to enable IoT devices to communicate - this is also known as the Web of Things (WoT). Simultaneously, edge computing, which seeks to offload computations from centralized cloud or data centers and execute them on the devices themselves, has been fueled by the advent of more capable devices in the IoT space, and the need for low latencies and data privacy in IoT applications. In this proposal, we seek to develop an edge computing framework and services to execute high-level applications written in the JavaScript language on WoT devices. To this end, we have developed a middleware layer called ThingsJS, which allows JavaScript code to be migrated among WoT devices, and the devices and the cloud. However, ThingsJS lacks many important abstractions that programmers have come to expect for building dependable and secure applications, as well as services for common operations available in cloud data centers. We will address this gap by taking a three pronged approach in this proposal. In the first prong, we will provide high-level edge services similar to those found in cloud data centers. In the second prong, we will provide failure tolerance and security as a service for edge applications on WoT devices. In the third prong, we will develop novel techniques for automated testing and test generation of WoT applications. Together, the three prongs will enable programmers to build highly capable, performant, dependable and secure WoT applications with minimal effort. Our research will thus be instrumental for leveraging the power of the WoT, and enable this technology in multiple domains such as healthcare, connected vehicles, and smart homes.