Title
Distributed Online Algorithms for the Agent Migration Problem in WSNs
Abstract
The mobile agent paradigm has been adopted by several systems in the area of wireless sensor networks as it enables a flexible distribution and placement of application components on nodes, at runtime. Most agent placement and migration algorithms proposed in the literature, assume that the communication rates between agents remain stable for a sufficiently long time to amortize the migration costs. Then, the problem is that frequent changes in the application-level communication may lead to several non-beneficial agent migrations, which may actually increase the total network cost, instead of decreasing it. To tackle this problem, we propose two distributed algorithms that take migration decisions in an online fashion, trying to deal with fluctuations in agent communication. The first algorithm is more of theoretical value, as it assumes infinite storage to keep information about the message exchange history of agents, while the second algorithm is a refined version that works with finite storage and limited information. We describe these algorithms in detail, and provide proofs for their competitive ratio vs. an optimal oracle. In addition, we evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithms for different parameter settings through a series of simulated experiments, also comparing their results with those achieved by an optimal static placement that is computed with full (a posteriori) knowledge of the execution scenarios. Our theoretical and experimental results are a strong indication for the robustness and effectiveness of the proposed algorithms.
Year
DOI
Venue
2013
10.1007/s11036-013-0452-0
MONET
Keywords
Field
DocType
Distributed algorithms,Online algorithms,Optimizing network cost,Wireless sensor and actuator networks,Agent placement,Agent migration,Agent-based programming
Online algorithm,Computer science,A priori and a posteriori,Mobile agent,Computer network,Oracle,Robustness (computer science),Distributed algorithm,Wireless sensor network,Distributed computing,Competitive analysis
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
18
5
1383-469X
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
4
0.40
30
Authors
6
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Nikos Tziritas123021.85
Spyros Lalis220835.55
Samee Ullah Khan3160581.01
Thanasis Loukopoulos429330.66
Z. Chen53443271.62
Petros Lampsas6859.10