Multi-Set Architecture for Multi-Applications Running in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) have become promising future for many applications. The development of WSN was originally motivated by military applications; however, these networks have drawn attention from many civilian applications ranging from environment and habitat monitoring, home automation, traffic control to health care applications. One of the most vital issues that have become a real challenge is the ability of a single network to run multi-applications. These applications would either be running concurrently or in a predefined logic sequence in-line with required changes. The ability to have multiple applications running on WSN after the deployment phase will serve a better usability and efficiency of the network as well as cutting down administrative and deployment costs. In this paper we present a design model that integrates two concepts: (a) switching mechanism for different sensor sets within one network, and, (b) a middleware which employs lightweight mobile agents. The proposed middleware layer will be managing two lightweight mobile agents namely, Configuration Agent (C-Agent) and Switching Agent (S-Agent). The C-Agent's main function is to initiate certain functionality changes and updates on the node where as S-Agent is to initiate switching of different set of nodes and hence different application. In the proposed model, concurrency of applications running in a sequenced order is achieved which results in prolonging the lifetime of sensor nodes and better network usability and efficiency. This is implemented by a switching mechanism of sub-sets in the network between sleep and active modes based on which application need to be executed. This model takes into consideration dense wireless sensor networks where multiple applications are running on different 'sets' of sensor nodes alternatively executing the applications and saving the computational and memory resources.