TOSThreads: thread-safe and non-invasive preemption in TinyOS

Many threads packages have been proposed for programming wireless sensor platforms. However, many sensor network operating systems still choose to provide an eventdriven model, due to efficiency concerns. We present TOSThreads, a threads package for TinyOS that combines the ease of a threaded programming model with the efficiency of an event-based kernel. TOSThreads is backwards compatible with existing TinyOS code, supports an evolvable, thread-safe kernel API, and enables flexible application development through dynamic linking and loading. In TOSThreads, TinyOS code runs at a higher priority than application threads and all kernel operations are invoked only via message passing, never directly, ensuring thread-safety while enabling maximal concurrency. The TOSThreads package is non-invasive; it does not require any large-scale changes to existing TinyOS code. We demonstrate that TOSThreads context switches and system calls introduce an overhead of less than 0.92% and that dynami...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2009
• Where: SENSYS
• Authors: Kevin Klues, Chieh-Jan Mike Liang, Jeongyeup Paek, Razvan Musaloiu-Elefteri, Philip Levis, Andreas Terzis, Ramesh Govindan
• Keywords: Dynamic Linking, Sensor Networks, SENSYS 2009, Threads Package, TinyOS Code