Cross-platform wireless sensor network development

Design and development of wireless sensor network applications adds an additional layer of complexity to traditional computer systems. The developer needs to be an expert in resource constrained embedded devices as well as traditional desktop computers. We propose Tinylnventor, an open-source development environment that takes a holistic approach to implementing sensor network applications. Users build applications using a drag-and-drop visual programming language Open Blocks, a language that Google selected for its App Inventor for Android. Tinylnventor uses cross-platform programming concepts, such as threads and common network operations, to provide a unified environment from which it generates application binaries for the respective platforms. We demonstrate through an application example that Tinylnventor is both simple to use and powerful in expressing complex applications.