Ubiquitous Computing: Shall We Understand It?
Prof. Robin Milner
Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge
Ubiquitous computing (ubicomp) is a vision of hardware/software
systems that pervade our environment, doing what we want without our
continual direction. For example, consider a motorway for driverless
vehicles. One of the UK Grand Challenges for Computing
Research addresses ubicomp not only from the visionary angle, but
also from the angle of design principles and theories that will
support it.
Ubicomp systems will exceed those that we know by orders of
magnitude. There seems little chance of extrapolating existing
methods of software production to cope with them. Ubicomp offers a
challenge and an opportunity to develop a new computer science that
interweaves three ingredients -- vision, design and theory -- much
more intimately than ever before. We need this, to be confident in
unleashing ubicomp systems.
That's the Grand Challenge; the lecture will explore how to address
it. One idea is via \emph{foothill projects}, which address modest
aims but try to combine segments of vision, design and theory. I
shall illustrate this with a mathematical model of mobility that links
the physical space of sensors and buildings with the virtual space of
software processes. If nothing else, this exercise shows that we have
a long way to go if we want to understand mobile ubiquitous systems.
