The convergence of communication and computation over the past two decades has given us the Internet. We believe that the next phase of the information technology revolution will be the convergence of control with communication, and computation. This will provide the ability for large numbers of sensors, actuators, and computational units, all interconnected wirelessly or over wires, to interact with the physical environment.

A key issue for these systems is, we believe, to determine what are the appropriate abstractions and architecture to enable this to occur. Also key to proliferation will be services provided by middleware, as well as methodologies for design. These issues are investigated both experimentally and theoretically in the Convergence Lab.

The lab is situated in room B14 of the Co-ordinated Science Laboratory (CSL) at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign (UIUC).