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

I-Corps项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力是开发广泛的自主分布式系统，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年底将有超过300亿台设备和1.5万亿美元的支出）以及对复杂自主设备（如无人机群）的不断发展的需求，增加了对并发和分布式软件解决方案及其功能的需求。虽然软件开发的标准实践满足了这些领域的一部分需求，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，并在安全、隐私和性能等关键方面提供保证。这个I-Corps项目是基于构建关键任务自治分布式系统的通用平台的开发。假设是，这些类型的系统有效地需要新的模型和工具来进行软件开发，最终需要用户界面。该方法关注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）最终用户的关注点之外。它不仅支持快速原型和更容易的开发，而且还支持执行更复杂任务集的系统构建，同时生成最佳的构建正确的系统。目标是授权特定于领域的非程序员专家，允许他们专注于特定于领域的概念性任务，同时消除底层分布实现细节的负担。该系统旨在为互联设备上的复杂任务提供缺失的部分，特别是那些在受限环境下运行的任务，如自主无人机群，通过这种自主性开辟新的可能性，如先进的无人机群任务。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.