Comparing alternative cluster management approaches for mobile node tracking in a factory Wireless Sensor Network

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) deployed on a shop floor for factory automation are subject to dynamic and uncertain conditions present with heavy machinery. To overcome these obstacles, on one hand, WSNs should be reconfigurable and adaptable to changes in the shop floor and ambient condition; on the other hand, WSNs should be efficient in consuming the limited wireless network resources. To accomplish these goals, we propose two cluster-based architectures (i.e. static or dynamic clusters), to organize the overall shop floor into a set of tracking zones, each composed of a sink node and a set of closest corresponding anchor nodes. To manage the wireless nodes activities and inter and intra cluster communications, an agent-based technique is employed. To compare the architectures, we report on a set of experiments performed in JADE (Java Agent Development Environment). In these experiments, we compare two agent-based approaches (dynamic and static) for managing clusters of wireless sensor nodes in a distributed tracking system. The experimental results corroborate the efficiency of static clusters versus the robustness of the dynamic clusters.