Etherware : Domainware for wireless control networks

The promise of middleware is to enable integration and evolution of complex systems dynamically. In demanding domains such as wireless control networks, fulfilling this promise while maintaining complete generality is extremely complicated. Understanding and exploiting the forcing functions of a domain helps manage this complexity by avoiding redundant generalizations. Domainware exploits this technique and adopts a simpler architecture to support more important non-functional requirements effectively. This paper presents Etherware, a Domainware for wireless control networks. Capitalizing on our development of a fairly complex control system testbed, commonly supported yet redundant generalizations are identified and eliminated. The resulting architecture is simple, and can support a wide range of trade-offs that can be manipulated easily at run-time. This is illustrated by showing how the performance of Control Time Protocol (CTP), an Etherware service, is optimized by the additional options available in Etherware.