Today, embedded processors (CPUs) can be found in a vast variety of products ranging from cellular phones, digital cameras and automobile navigation systems up to network-connected household appliances. Some of these embedded CPUs can run advanced operating systems, such as Linux, to achieve flexible network connectivity and to have logically same functionality as that of high-end CPUs designed for PCs and workstations. This trend accelerates the technology toward the age of
“ubiquitous computing”, that is to integrate computation into the environment enabling people to interact with computers more naturally.

In such situation, distributed parallel processing with network-connected embedded CPUs will become one of the most important
technologies to realize a variety of pervasive applications. One of the problems in managing R&D projects for ubiquitous/pervasive computing is the lack of cost-effective standardized platform for prototyping,
testing and evaluating application programs on network-connected embedded CPUs. Addressing this problem, in this paper, we present a compact cluster computer with embedded CPUs, called a “Ubiquitous
Computing Cluster (UCC)” , which provides a rapid-prototyping environment for ubiquitous/pervasive computing applications at very low cost compared with conventional PC clusters.

see more information at http://www.aoki.ecei.tohoku.ac.jp/ucc/