NIST Smart Space: Pervasive Computing Initiative
Authors: Lynne Rosenthal, Vincent M. Stanford
Venue: Proceedings of the 9th IEEE International Workshops on Enabling Technologies: Infrastructure for Collaborative Enterprises (2000)

The next great computing paradigm shift, to pervasive computing, is already well under way and will have no less of an impact on industry, government, and daily life than the personal computing revolution. Pervasive Computing refers to the emerging trend toward numerous, easily accessible computing devices connected to each other and to an increasingly ubiquitous network infrastructure. This trend will likely create new opportunities and challenges for Information Technology (IT) companies to place computers and sensors in virtually every device, appliance, and piece of equipment in buildings, homes, workplaces, factories, and even clothing. Within five years, vendors will offer portable and embedded devices containing low-cost systems-on-a-chip (SOC) with enough CPU, memory, and input/output logic to execute complex software applications, and use pico-cellular wireless communications. Effective pervasive computing must present user interfaces distributed across numerous, often small, and even invisible devices. This requires new techniques in measurement, software testing, management of the frequency space, and human-computer interactions. Failure to develop and exploit these pervasive computing technologies and techniques may be very costly to U.S. IT companies.The field of pervasive computing is in its infancy and many of the technologies required to make it a reality are immature and high risk. ITL has launched a pervasive computing initiative to investigate the technical and standards roadblocks impeding integration of the emerging and existing technologies. Consistent with ITL's strategic plan, the initiative involves working with industry to develop and demonstrate test methods, reference data, tests, proof of concept implementations, and standards to help pull the underlying technologies forward and thus help the field mature and grow. The initiative is multi-disciplinary, takes advantage of the expertise of several Divisions within ITL, and creates new expertise. Areas addressed by the initiative include: information access and user interfaces, networking, software, and security. The pervasive computing effort is proceeding in two phases.In phase 1, we are prototyping experimental smart spaces. The prototypes focus on advanced forms of human-computer-interaction, integrating pico-cellular wireless networks with dynamic service discovery, automatic device configuration, and software infrastructures required to successfully program pervasive computing applications. The objectives of phase 1 are to: Identify key areas, which would benefit from standardization, e.g., service discovery, APIs, and interoperability, Provide 'hands-on' experience in identifying applicable measurements, e.g., conformance tests, interoperability tests, diagnostic tools, and benchmarks, to promote the technology, Identify security mechanisms needed to ensure privacy, integrity, and accessibility of implementations.In phase 2, they are: Develop metrics, test methods, and standard reference data sets to 'pull' the technology forward, Provide reference implementations to serve as models for possible commercial implementations, Collaborate with industry standards groups to develop unambiguous, testable specifications, Establish partnerships with industry and academic organizations, Interconnect the phase 1 prototypes to explore key issues associated with distributed smart spaces.