D3N: programming distributed computationin pocket switched networks

Abstract

We propose a novel approach to Pocket Switched Networks (PSNs)using a specialised declarative language called 'D3N'. A PSN is a recently devised type of communication based on physical proximity, where people encounter each other and their devices directly communicate within their communication range. D3N allows us to program distributed applications based on reactive behaviour in a distributed set of nodes. We exploit a functional language approach in designing D3N for the clean abstraction given by pure declarative languages, at the same time, taking an advantage of well defined semantics. In this paper, we show a fragment of D3N, describe the node runtime architecture, and illustrate its effectiveness through some examples.