Towards a Portable Implementation of a Visual Block Language for IoT Applications

The increasing heterogeneity of IoT platforms poses significant challenges to the portability and interoperability of IoT applications. Specifically, our visual block language for IoT generated only platform-specific code, limiting the reusability across different environments. To overcome this limitation, we introduce IoTAIL, an intermediate language designed to decouple front-end visual editors from back-end platform-specific code generators. IoTAIL is built on the foundation of the IoTA calculus and follows an event-condition-action (ECA) structure, providing a platform-independent representation of IoT applications. It extends the ECA model to support device declarations, input/output interactions, timers, and hierarchical device organization, facilitating scalable and modular development. By bridging the visual programming environment with diverse IoT execution platforms, IoTAIL enhances flexibility in IoT system development. Additionally, IoTAIL can incorporate static and dynamic checking mechanisms to detect redundancy, inconsistency, and circular dependencies in IoT rules, ensuring system reliability and integrity. This paper presents the design, features, and potential applications of IoTAIL, highlighting its role in enabling portable and maintainable IoT solutions.