Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

A Notation and Logic for Mobile Computing

  • Published:
Formal Methods in System Design Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

We define a concurrent mobile system as one where independently executing components may migrate through some space during the course of the computation, and where the pattern of connectivity among the components changes as they move in and out of proximity. The definition is general enough to encompass a system of mobile hosts moving in physical space as well as a system of migrating software agents implemented on a set of possibly non-mobile hosts. In this paper, we present Mobile UNITY, a notation for expressing mobile computations and a logic for reasoning about their temporal properties. Our goal is to find a minimalist model of mobile computation that will allow us to express mobile components in a modular fashion and to reason formally about the possible behaviors of a system composed from mobile components. A simplified serial communication protocol among components which can move in space serves as an illustration for the notation.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. M. Abadi and L. Lamport, “An old-fashioned recipe for real-time,” in J.W. de Bakker, C. Huizing, W.P. Roever, and G. Rosenberg (Eds.) Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 600, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1991, pp. 1-27.

    Google Scholar 

  2. B. Alpern and F.B. Schneider, “Defining liveness,” Information Processing Letters,Vol. 21, No. 4, pp. 181-185, 1985.

    Google Scholar 

  3. K.M. Chandy and J. Misra, Parallel Program Design: A Foundation, Addison-Wesley, New York, NY, 1988.

    Google Scholar 

  4. E.D. Dijkstra, A Discipline of Programming, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1976.

    Google Scholar 

  5. G.H. Forman and J. Zahorjan, “The challenges of mobile computing,” IEEE Computer, Vol. 27, No. 4, pp. 38-47, 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  6. C.G. Harrison, D.M. Chess, and A. Kershenbaum, “Mobile agents: Are they a good idea?” RC 19887, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, NY, 1995.

  7. C.A.R. Hoare, “An axiomatic basis for computer programming,” Communications of the ACM, Vol. 12, No. 10, pp. 576-580,583, 1969.

    Google Scholar 

  8. T. Imielinski and B.R. Badrinath, “Wireless computing: Challenges in data management,” Communications of the ACM, Vol. 37, No. 10, pp. 18-28, 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  9. P.J. McCann and G.-C. Roman, “Mobile UNITY coordination constructs applied to packet forwarding for mobile hosts,” in D. Garlan, D. Metayer, and D. Le (Eds.), Second International Conference on Coordination Languages and Models, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Sept. 1997, pp. 338-354.

    Google Scholar 

  10. P.J. McCann and G.-C. Roman, “Compositional programming abstractions for mobile computing,” IEEE Trans. Software Engineering, Vol. 24, No. 2, pp. 97-110, Feb. 1998.

    Google Scholar 

  11. J. Misra, “A logic for concurrent programming: Progress,” Journal of Computer and Software Engineering, Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 273-300, 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  12. J. Misra, “A logic for concurrent programming: Safety,” Journal of Computer and Software Engineering, Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 239-272, 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  13. O. Nierstrasz and T.D. Meijler, “Requirements for a composition language,” in Proceedings of the ECOOP '94 Workshop on Models and Languages for Coordination of Parallelism and Distribution, Bologna, Italy, 5 July 1994, 1995, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Germany, pp. 193, 147-161.

    Google Scholar 

  14. C. Perkins, “IP mobility support,” RFC 2002, IETF Network Working Group, 1996.

  15. G.P. Picco, G.-C. Roman, and P.J. McCann, “Expressing code mobility in Mobile UNITY,” in Sixth European Software Engineering Conference (ESEC'97), Zurich, 1997, pp. 500-518.

  16. G.-C. Roman, P.J. McCann, and J.Y. Plun, “MobileUNITY: Reasoning and specification in mobile computing,” ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology, Vol. 6, No. 3, pp. 250-282, 1997.

    Google Scholar 

  17. M. Satyanarayanan, J.J. Kistler, L.B. Mummert, M.R. Ebling, P. Kumar, and Q. Lu, “Experience with disconnected operation in a mobile computing environment,” in Proceedings of the USENIX Symposium on Mobile and Location-Indepedent Computing, Cambridge, MA, 1993, pp. 11-28.

  18. B.N. Schilit, N. Adams, and R. Want, “Context-aware computing applications,” in Proceedings of theWorkshop on Mobile Computing Systems and Applications, Santa Cruz, CA, 1994, IEEE, pp. 85-90.

  19. D. Terry, M. Theimer, K. Petersen, A. Demers, M. Spreitzer, and C. Hauser, “Managing update conflicts in Bayou, a weakly connected replicated storage system,” Operating Systems Review, Vol. 29, No. 5, pp. 172-83, 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  20. G.M. Voelker and B.N. Bershad, “Mobisaic: An information system for a mobile wireless computing environment,” in Proceedings of the Workshop on Mobile Computing Systems and Applications, Santa Cruz, CA, 1994, IEEE, pp. 185-190.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, Washington University, One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO, 63130, USA

    Gruia-Catalin Roman

  2. Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies, 263 Shuman Blvd., Naperville, IL, 60566, USA

    Peter J. McCann

Authors
  1. Gruia-Catalin Roman
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Peter J. McCann
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Roman, GC., McCann, P.J. A Notation and Logic for Mobile Computing. Formal Methods in System Design 20, 47–68 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1012908529306

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1012908529306

Search

Navigation