Reconfigurable platforms for ubiquitous computing

Abstract

Ubiquitous computing requires flexibility. Melting distributed electronic devices into everyday's life implies the need to adapt to evolving standards and dynamic environments. Furthermore, to gain user acceptance, such devices should be able to adapt to different usage patterns and user profiles. Scalability is also an important issue, allowing functional enhancements to already deployed systems. In this work we address these issues applying the concept of reconfigurability on different abstraction layers. Concerning the physical layer we discuss multistandard and standard update capabilities, dynamic power management and functional optimisation. Within this context we consider important design issues related to on-chip communication networks. Furthermore, dynamic reconfigurable processor architectures are analyzed with respect to applications in communications. Finally, in the service layer, we address device location, interconnection and clustering.