Mobile Intelligence

6.4 MOBILE AGENTS AND SENSOR NETWORK

Sensor network can be thought of as the resulting network that emerges from the, possibly random, deployment of multiple sensing devices with limited resources, in a particular area, to perform a task through coordination and communication. The sensing devices are typically referred to as sensor nodes. The network may be composed of thousands of nodes with possibly varying computational power, generally communicating over wireless medium. The data collected by the nodes are relayed to a special node in the network referred to as a base station or sink. The base station is usually assumed to not suffer from the resource scarcity present in the other nodes and is not necessarily equipped with any sensing apparatus. Figure 6.2 presents a pictorial abstraction of mobile agents in the sensor network environment. Within the scope of sensor network, applications are generally concerned with the acquisition and aggregation of the data available for processing. Reconfigurability of the sensor nodes for multi tasking that is, to allow a particular network to handle more than one task, is a new emerging trend in this environment. Keeping in line with our discussion thus far, we feel compelled to explore the effect of mobile agent technology on the two main areas of research in sensor network. We will first focus on data aggregation while delaying the discussion of research pertaining to reconfigurable sensor network to Section 6.4.2.

Figure 6.2 Mobile ...