Computer hardware is getting increasingly smaller and more powerful. The usage of inexpensive hardware components, which can be transparently integrated into arbitrary systems like cars, trains, trucks, sensors, etc., increases continuously and enables an important emerging market. These components are connected via radio networks instead of expensive cabling.

Due to the "low power" and "wireless" assumptions for the individual nodes, new and extremely complex challenges on software development arise. Developers of such application software have to cope not only with the business logic, but also with complex communication and coordination issues of many heterogeneous low power nodes that are spread across the network. For these tasks very specific, machine-oriented competencies are required, which leads to high development risks and long development cycles.

The goal of the project "Koordinationsmiddleware für Funknetze aus low-power Knoten" ("Coordination middleware for radio networks of low power nodes", short: "LOPONODE Middleware") is to research the technical feasibility of robust, reusable middleware components for the secure communication and collaboration of low power nodes in order to enable the consistent distribution of information across the network. Is an effective coordination middleware possible when considering the limited resources (CPU, memory, bandwidth) of low power nodes, which may even be temporally out of power in exceptional cases. Can currently approved software engineering approaches be used in this area to gain essential advantages in the development process?

Proof-of-concept implementations are carried out for use cases in the areas of traffic logistics and management  where an approaching train is detected by sensors and this information is distributed securely by the LOPONODE middleware system across the network to various applications.