Deploying Agents for Monitoring and Notification of Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

A wireless sensor network (WSN) consists of a large number of sensor nodes. The nodes are represented by mobile ground robots and are deployed over an area to perform local sensing of the surroundings. Sensing and detection of critical events and vulnerabilities in such areas are highly desirable for a wide range of civil and military applications. Autonomy and energy efficiency are two key design issues of WSN robot nodes that ultimately impact performance and validity. A novel communication protocol is used for energy efficiency. The protocol allows WSN nodes to communicate with each other and send notification messages while optimizing energy consumption based on the alternation of use between CSMA and TDMA. It is embedded in an agent framework, results of which are still under investigation.