Publication - Turn Off Your Radios! Environmental Monitoring Using Power-Constrained Sensor Agents

Authors: Corkill, Daniel D.; Holzhauer, Douglas; Koziarz, Walter
Title: Turn Off Your Radios! Environmental Monitoring Using Power-Constrained Sensor Agents
Abstract: CNAS (Collaborative Network for Atmospheric Sensing) is an agent-based, power-aware sensor network for ground-level atmospheric monitoring. In many multi-agent applications, reducing message transmission is a primary objective. In CNAS, however, it is not the cost of sending messages, but when messages can be sent that is the driving communication constraint. CNAS agents must have their radios turned off most of the time, as even listening consumes significant power. Working in such collaborative isolation changes the character of agent interaction, as agents must have their radios turned on when others are sending messages to them. CNAS requires agent policies that can intelligently meet operational requirements while communicating only during intermittent, mutually established, communication windows. In this paper, we describe the CNAS agents and their hardware and blackboard-system software architectures. We also relate experiences and lessons learned from a field deployment of CNAS at the 2006 PATRIOT Exercise held last July at Fort McCoy, Wisconsin, and we discuss the upcoming CNAS deployment in conjunction with the Talisman-Saber Combined Exercise to be conducted in May-June 2007 in Australia. We conclude with an overview of current CNAS research that is exploring the addition of a rollable solar panel to each sensor agent that allows its battery reserves to grow (up to full capacity) when sunlight is available. Replenishable power reserves can support unlimited operational lifetimes, but activity decisions become more complex as each agent now must consider how much additional power may become available and when.
Keywords: Blackboard, Communication, Communication Protocol, Control, Multi-Agent Systems
Publication: First International Workshop on Agent Technology for Sensor Networks (ATSN-07), pp. 31 - 38
Location: Honolulu, Hawaii
Date: May 2007
Sources: PDF: http://dancorkill.home.comcast.net/~dancorkill/pubs/CNAS-ATSN07.pdf
Reference: Corkill, Daniel D.; Holzhauer, Douglas; Koziarz, Walter. Turn Off Your Radios! Environmental Monitoring Using Power-Constrained Sensor Agents. First International Workshop on Agent Technology for Sensor Networks (ATSN-07), pp. 31-38. May 2007.
bibtex: 
@inproceedings{Corkill-459,
  author    = "Daniel D. Corkill and Douglas Holzhauer and Walter
               Koziarz",
  title     = "{Turn Off Your Radios! Environmental Monitoring
               Using Power-Constrained Sensor Agents}",
  booktitle = "First International Workshop on Agent Technology
               for Sensor Networks (ATSN-07)",
  pages     = "31-38",
  month     = "May",
  year      = "2007",
  address   = "Honolulu, Hawaii",
  url       = "http://mas.cs.umass.edu/paper/459",
}