Abstract: Systems and methods allow access between a software application residing within a processor module and an accelerator module having an accelerator address space distinct from the processor address space. Access to the accelerator is provided by mapping the accelerator address space to an associated portion of the processor address space. The association may be made based upon a description of the accelerator address space provided in a pre-determined format. The formatted description is processed to create a software indicator module that is provided to the user application to thereby indicate the associated portion of the processor address space. Access to the associated portion of the processor address space by the software program is redirected to the accelerator address space to thereby allow the application to access the accelerator. A functional interface that allows the software application to issue commands and perform other administrative functions on the accelerator module may also be provided.

Abstract: Methods and apparatus are provided for standardizing an interface infrastructure between sensor devices and client applications. The apparatus comprises a Sensor Application Integration Framework (SAIF) in the form of an application program interface (API) transport layer between sensor devices and client applications. Sensor services are registered in the SAIF API as interface definitions, and the client applications search the interface definitions corresponding to desired sensor services. An interactive handshake of messages and data between client applications and sensor services is implemented via the SAIF API by means of standard communication protocols such as XML. The SAIF API abstracts the details of the underlying sensor hardware from the client application, and can therefore function as a standard interface for sensor simulation, for sensor emulation, and for an active sensor device.