Towards a Distributed Java VM in Sensor Networks using Scalable Source Routing [ Extended

One of the major drawbacks of small embedded systems such as sensor nodes is the need to program in a low level programming language like C or assembler. The resulting code is often unportable, system specific and demands deep knowledge of the hardware details. This paper motivates the use of Java as an alternative programming language. We focus on the tiny AmbiComp Virtual Machine (ACVM) which we currently develop as the main part of a more general Java based development platform for interconnected sensor nodes. This VM is designed to run on different small embedded devices in a distributed network. It uses the novel scalable source routing (SSR) algorithm to distribute and share data and workload. SSR provides key based routing which enables distributed hash table (DHT) structures as a substrate for the VM to disseminate and access remote code and objects. This approach allows all VMs in the network to collaborate. The result looks like one large, distributed VM which supports a subset of the Java language. The ACVM substitutes functionality of an operating system which is missing on the target platform. As this development is work in progress, we outline the ideas behind this approach to provide first insights into the upcoming problems.