UbiMASS Ubiquitous Mobile Agent System for Wireless Sensor Networks

Ubiquitous systems build on the vision that great amounts of fixed and mobile microchips and sensors will be integrated in everyday objects. Developing services on basis of sensor nodes and limited devices is an arduous task. A program running on such a device is static and limited to a single service. If a new service needs to be performed, devices have to be fundamentally reprogrammed and reloaded. For dynamic service distribution a mobile agent system is devised and services are distributed by mobile agents. The idea in this paper is to load a service on a limited device or sensor node when it is needed and to switch services dynamically. The service comes in form of an agent to each device. We developed a mobile agent system called UbiMASS that is downsized to run on sensor nodes. UbiMASS was evaluated on the sensor nodes ESB430 which has multiple sensors and actuators on-board. For real test scenarios, we could investigate the possibility and advantages of service changes on a wireless sensor network using mobile agents. UbiMASS offers an easy and convenient way to dynamically reprogram tiny devices with wireless connections.