Newcastle University

Our vision for TrAmS-2 is to extend our contribution to rigorous and model-based approaches to the design and analysis of ambient computing systems; we will now address the challenges created by the increasingly urgent need to manage the use of limited resources and to provide trust in the new ambient environment en-abled by cloud computing.

Trustworthiness ambient systems must not only be dependable, but also be seen to be dependable. The provision of trustworthiness is challenged by the need to stay within resource (notably power) constraints, and by the major questions of trust that accompany the use of ambient computing resources in cloud comput- ing environments. The platform extension introduces a new focus in these two areas.

Ambient systems pose huge problems which are additional to those already (partially) solved for systems which are less mobile, dynamic or restricted in the resources.

Ambition No single research group can solve all of the problems: we will re-balance our group to bring in skills in computer engineering and large-scale computation.

Contribution We have a team with a unique, recognised, combination of strengths in formal methods of analysis and design, fault tolerance, tool support, system and hardware design, cloud computing, and solid practical experience in industrial applications.

Risk We will continue to investigate ambitious and risky ideas, many of which we expect to lead to new proposals.

Focus Our research will focus on well-founded approaches to delivering resilience in resource-constrained ambient systems, including design and analysis methods and next generation tools.

Sponsors: EPSRC