nAIT: A source analysis and instrumentation framework for nesC

Automated software engineering methods support the construction, maintenance, and analysis of both new and legacy systems. Their application is commonplace in desktop- and enterprise-class systems due to the productivity and reliability benefits they afford. The contribution of this article is to present an applied foundation for extending the use of such methods to the flourishing domain of wireless sensor networks. The objective is to enable developers to construct tools that aid in understanding both the static and dynamic properties of reactive, event-based systems. We present a static analysis and instrumentation toolkit for the nesC language, the defacto standard for sensor network development. We highlight the novel aspects of the toolkit, analyze its performance, and provide representative case-studies that illustrate its use.