A Distributed Agent System for Managing a Web-based Sensor Network with Field Servers
Tokihiro Fukatsu, Masayuki Hirafuji, Takuji Kiura · Computers in Agriculture and Natural Resources, 23-25 July 2006, Orlando Florida · 2013
This paper presents the framework and function of an agent system developed for Field Serverto manage Web-based sensor network. This system consisting of an agent program, program configurationfiles, and a Web interface, can easily and autonomously manage Web-based sensor nodes via the Internet. Itcan perform simple function such as monitoring to more complex and intelligent operations to adapt tovarious conditions as specified by the user in the program configuration files. The users can easily accessand change the agent management via the Web interface in the agent system. It is also designed to handleWeb-based nodes, Web applications and Web information as nodes, so its functions can be easily expandedby simply interacting with these nodes without changing the agent program. Moreover, the agent system isdesigned to treat itself as just one of the nodes resulting to a highly scalable and robust system. A meta-agentsystem, which can treat another agent system, coordinates the function of managing many nodes in thewhole system so that it can achieve scalability system. The nested structure of the agent system in whichseveral agent systems handle several nodes multiply, serves as a data backup mechanism as well as a way toavoid bottlenecks. Results of the trial experiments show the agent system for Field Servers is a robust andscalable system for long-term field monitoring, effective data handling, and management based on thesituation.