16 November 2006 -- A wireless sensor network that uses software agents using heat seeking sensors can navigate a robot safely through a simulated fire.
In addition, once the agent locates the fire, it can clone itself, which will then create a ring of software around the fire, said researchers at Washington University in St. Louis. A fireman can then communicate with this agent through a personal digital assistant and learn where the fire is and how intense it is. Should the fire expand, the agents clone again and maintain the “ring of fire.”
Agents are specialized pieces of code that are self-contained and mobile. Wireless sensor networks consist of tiny computers that can fit in the palm of a hand. They can run on small batteries and sport an antenna and a sensor, so it can sense the environment for temperature, magnetism, sound, and humidity.
Gruia-Catalin Roman, Ph.D., the Harold B. and Adelaide G. Welge Professor of Computer Science and department chair, created software architecture to support applications targeted to the sensor network environment. Chenyang Lu, Ph.D., Washington University assistant professor of computer science and engineering, Roman’s doctoral student Chien-Liang Fok, and Roman developed middleware called Agilla, which enables agents to move across the sensor network and between sensor networks connected via the Internet and to clone themselves, thus forming complex communities of cooperating agents.
This approach to the development of sensor network applications offers a level of flexibility. It also permits multiple applications to co-exist over the same basic hardware in response to changing needs.
Roman said he believes wireless sensor networks are poised to explode upon the world stage, similar to the way the Internet took off.
“What researchers are banking on is that sensor networks will be so cheap to make that they can be employed on a very large scale,” said Roman, who directs Washington University’s Mobile Computing Laboratory. “This way you can spread hundreds and thousands of them around gathering data and communicating.”
Imagine a farmer wanting to get soil data over hundreds of acres with slightly varying soil types. Instead of painstakingly physically taking measurements in the field, he could send a software agent to a particular sensor network, have the agent clone itself and gather the data over hundreds of acres, then transfer itself onto another sensor network on the Internet and send its data back to the farmer’s office.
Similarly, a manufacturer might want to safeguard containers in a warehouse. A sensor network can go on the containers and communicate with each other and send an alarm if it senses an intrusion of some sort.
“This is fascinating software; and this technology is opening up, and we have no idea where it’s going to go,” Roman said. “Right now, wireless sensor networks are allowing us to explore the future.”
One of the key features of Agilla software is its flexibility. In the fire-simulation study, the networks allow for simulation of fire and tracking of the fire. Agilla lays the foundation for rapidly developing applications.
For related information, go to www.isa.org/networks.
