Keynote: Beyond the Next Paper: Building Foundations for the Next Decade of Batteryless Computing

Speaker: Jacob Sorber, Professor & Computer Science Division Chair, School of Computing, Clemson University

Abstract: Batteryless computing has grown in recent years, with new devices, new applications, and improvements efficiency and ease of use; however, batteryless systems research is still challenging. And, it might not have to be. We depend on custom hardware platforms, fragmented software stacks, ad hoc evaluation methods, and experimental setups that are often difficult to reproduce. These challenges create barriers to entry, slow collaboration, and make it harder for the community to build upon prior work. This discussion will explore how the batteryless computing research community can grow through better shared infrastructure: accessible tools, standardized interfaces and benchmarks, reproducible workflows, and open experimentation platforms. I will describe the progress, goals, and plans for Cicada, an NSF-funded community infrastructure project aimed at addressing these challenges, with group discussion throughout. I don’t have all the answers, but I hope we (as a community) have some that will lower barriers, accelerate innovation, improve reproducibility, and help batteryless computing grow into a more mature and sustainable research ecosystem.

Biography: Jacob Sorber is an Associate Professor in the School of Computing at Clemson University, where he leads the PERSIST Research Lab. His research focuses on embedded systems, mobile sensors, wearables, batteryless and intermittent computing, and low-power system design. He has contributed to the development of hardware and software techniques that enable small computing devices to adapt to changing conditions, recover from frequent power failures, and operate maintenance-free for long periods.