A mobile agent-based framework for configurable sensor networks

This paper presents a new framework for self-configurable sensor networks. The framework enables sensor networks to be dynamically reconfigured to suit the requirements of applications and changes in environments detected by sensors. The framework provides a middleware system with an architecture that is structured as a collection of components organized in a five-layer hierarchy. Since these components are implemented as mobile agents and their layers have common interfaces, we can deploy the components at remote sensor nodes and dynamically replace them with other components designed for the same layer without affecting the rest of the nodes. Therefore, the framework provides a powerful approach for developing adaptive and application-specific software for sensor nodes easily. This paper describes the architecture of the framework and the implementation of a prototype, which currently uses Java as the implementation language along with a component description language. Two interesting applications are briefly described to demonstrate the utility and flexibility of this framework.