Section: New Results

Pervasive or Ubiquious Computing

Participants : Laurent Ciarletta [contact] , Olivier Festor, Ye-Qiong Song, Emmanuel Nataf, Thomas Paris, Benjamin Segault, Antoine Richard, Petro Aksonenko.

P. Aksonenko PhD is under the co-direction of L. Ciarletta and Patrick Henaff from Loria Dep 5. Thomas Gurriet, now PhD student at Georgia Tech under the supervision of Prs Eric Feron and Aaron Ames is contributing to the topic of CPS safety.

In Pervasive or Ubiquitous Computing, a growing number of communicating/computing devices are collaborating to provide users with enhanced and ubiquitous services in a seamless way.

These systems, increasingly numerous and heterogeneous, are embedded in the fabric of our daily lives. Our initial subject of interest is to study them with regards to their complexity: Those numerous interconnected and heterogeneous entities are exhibiting a global behavior impossible to forecast by merely observing individual properties.

Firstly, users physical interactions and behaviors have to be considered. They are influenced and influence their surroundings and the environment. Secondly, the potential multiplicity and heterogeneity of devices, services, communication protocols, and the constant mobility and reorganization also need to be addressed. Thirdly we are aking into account their dynamcity, with regards to their mobility and evolving context.

Our research on this field is going towards both closing the loop between humans and systems, physical and computing systems, and taming the complexity, using multi-modeling (to combine the best of each domain specific model) and co-simulation (to design, develop and evaluate) as part of a global conceptual and practical toolbox.

In 2016 we mainly worked on the Cyber Physical Systems.

We maintained the Aetournos platform at Loria in collaboration with 6PO and the support of ADT UASS. We are studying the collective movements of a flock of flying communicating robots / UAVs, evolving in potentially perturbed environment constitute a good example of a Cyber Physical System.

The effort put in the UAVs gathers academic and research ressources from the Aetournos platform, the Inria ADT R2D2 and the 6PO project, while applied, industrial and more R&D projects have been pursued this year (Medical Express / Outback Joe Search and Rescue Challenge, Alerion, Hydradrone, and a CIFRE PhD with Thales for example) .

This also led to two new accepted projects:

• one Interreg “Grone”, a generic project about drones in industrial and agricultural environments, started in October 2016

• and one FUI22 “CEOS”, about insuring safety in UAVs at the system level that will start in 2017

  One of the emerging topic in this area is the safety of Mobile IoT / CPS with regards to their environment and users. This gave first results on how to design the internal communication system [21], the overal system [15], specific safety solutions [14] and a US Patent has been filled on a termination system led by Georgia Tech [Optimal Emergency Termination System for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles by Destructive Rotor Surface Reduction, Application No.: 62/378,923].

• Smart * (MECSYCO)

  We have studied scientific problems around models and simulators composition. We have also looked into practical and implementation issues in the frame of our MECSYCO /AA4MM solutions. We have added to our Smart Grid scenarios a smart appartment complex use case.

• (Very Serious) Gaming: Starburst Gaming. During some exploratory work, we have seen the potential of these Pervasive Computing ressources in the (Very Serious) Gaming area.