A decentralized solution for locating mobile agents

In this paper we propose a new strategy for tracking mobile agents in a network. Our proposal is based on a semi-cooperative approach: while performing its own prescribed task, a mobile agent moves keeping in mind that a searching agent might be looking for it. In doing so we want a fully distributed solution that does not rely on a central server, and we also want to avoid the use of long forwarding pointers. Our proposal is based on appropriate delays that the mobile agents must perform while moving on the network so to facilitate its tracking, should it be needed. The searching agent computes a particular searching path that will guarantee the tracking within one traversal of the network. The delays to be computed depend on structural properties of the network. We perform several experiments following different strategies for computing the searching path and we compare our results.