Compositional programming abstractions for mobile computing

Recent advances in wireless networking technology and the increasing demand for ubiquitous, mobile connectivity demonstrate the importance of providing reliable systems for managing the reconfiguration and disconnection of components. The design of such systems requires tools and techniques appropriate to the task. Many formal models of computation, including UNITY, are not adequate for expressing reconfiguration and disconnection and are, therefore, inappropriate vehicles for investigating the impact of mobility on the construction of modular and composable systems. Algebraic formalisms such as the /spl pi/-calculus have been proposed for modeling mobility. This paper addresses the question of whether UNITY, a state-based formalism with a foundation in temporal logic, can be extended to address concurrent, mobile systems. In the process, we examine some new abstractions for communication among mobile components that express reconfiguration and disconnection and which can be composed in a modular fashion.