I-Corps: Software Platform for Constructing Mission-critical Autonomous Distributed Systems

I-Corps：用于构建关键任务自治分布式系统的软件平台

• 批准号: 2028103
• 负责人: Roman Lubynsky
• 金额: $ 5万
• 依托单位: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-06-01 至 2023-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2028103&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Corps; Software; Platform; Constructing; Mission

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of a wide range of autonomous distributed systems, including cloud services, internet of things (IoT) and edge-computing capable factory systems, and autonomous distributed robotics. Heavy use of cloud services, proliferation of IoT (more than 30B devices and $1.5 trillion in spending by the end of 2020) and a developing need for complex autonomous devices (e.g., drone swarms) increases the demand for concurrent and distributed software solutions and their capabilities. While standard practices of software development meet demands in a portion of these areas, due to novel requirements of complex software there is a constant rise of the burden for software developers and domain experts. There is a need to shorten the time to deploy new systems but also enable more complex systems, fortified by guarantees in crucial aspects such as security, privacy, and performance.This I-Corps project is based on the development of a general platform for constructing mission-critical autonomous distributed systems. The hypothesis is that these types of systems effectively require new models and tools for software development and ultimately user interfaces. The approach focuses on fundamental difficulties of distributed software construction and hides them from the concerns of the domain-expert (potentially non-programmer) end-user. It enables not just rapid prototyping and easier development but also construction of systems that perform a more complex sets of tasks, while producing optimal correct-by-construction systems. The goal is to empower domain-specific non-programmer experts, allowing them to focus on conceptual domain-specific tasks, while eliminating the burden of low-level distribution implementation details. The system is designed to provide a missing piece for enabling complex tasks on interconnected devices, especially the those operating under restricted environments, like autonomous drone swarms, opening new possibilities with such autonomy, such as advanced drone swarm missions.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该 I-Corps 项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力是开发各种自主分布式系统，包括云服务、物联网 (IoT) 和具有边缘计算能力的工厂系统以及自主分布式机器人。云服务的大量使用、物联网的激增（到 2020 年底，设备数量将超过 30B，支出将达到 1.5 万亿美元），以及对复杂自主设备（例如无人机群）不断增长的需求，增加了对并发和分布式软件解决方案及其解决方案的需求。能力。虽然软件开发的标准实践满足了部分领域的需求，但由于复杂软件的新需求，软件开发人员和领域专家的负担不断增加。需要缩短部署新系统的时间，但也需要启用更复杂的系统，并通过安全、隐私和性能等关键方面的保证来加强。这个 I-Corps 项目基于开发一个用于构建任务关键型自治分布式系统。假设这些类型的系统实际上需要新的模型和工具来进行软件开发以及最终的用户界面。该方法侧重于分布式软件构建的基本困难，并将其隐藏在领域专家（可能是非程序员）最终用户的关注范围内。它不仅可以实现快速原型设计和更轻松的开发，还可以构建执行更复杂任务集的系统，同时生成最佳的构建校正系统。目标是赋予特定领域的非程序员专家权力，使他们能够专注于概念性的特定领域任务，同时消除低级分发实现细节的负担。该系统旨在提供一个缺失的部分，以实现互连设备上的复杂任务，特别是那些在受限环境下运行的设备，例如自主无人机群，通过这种自主性开辟新的可能性，例如先进的无人机群任务。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命通过使用基金会的智力优点和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，并被认为值得支持。