Optimized Deployment Strategy of Mobile Agents in Wireless Sensor
Networks
Xue Wang, Sheng Wang, and Aiguo Jiang
State Key Laboratory of Precision Measurement Technology and Instruments
Department of Precision Instruments, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, P.R.China
wangxue@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn
Abstract
Energy consumption is critical and the processing
ability and memory of sensor nodes are limited in
wireless sensor networks. Mobile agent technology can
decrease energy consumption and boost network
performance. Inadequate deployment of mobile agents
might lead to network failure due to constraint
bandwidth. In this paper, a deployment strategy of
mobile agents in wireless sensor networks, which
integrates the creation sequence, priority and energy
consumption of mobile agents, is proposed. Genetic
algorithm is engaged to optimize the strategy. Then the
energy consumption and time delay of mobile agent
model are compared with client/server model. The
simulation results indicate that the optimized
deployment strategy of mobile agents can efficiently
decrease the energy consumption and time delay in
wireless sensor network, and improve the real-time
ability. Thus, the network lifetime is prolonged and the
real-time ability is boosted. Finally, the performance
of optimized deployment strategy of mobile agents has
been validated in quality inspection on manufacturing.
1. Introduction
Wireless sensor network (WSN) is an emerging
technology, which can be applied potentially in
military, spatial, industrial and consumptive fields [1].
WSNs are critical in energy consumption and the
processing ability and memory of nodes are limited
which have a finite operational life and low duty
cycles. Client/server (C/S) paradigm is usually adopted
in WSNs, which has many flaws in practical
application [2]. Qi firstly proposed mobile agent
paradigm in WSNs [3]. Mobile agent (MA) is a
computational/analytical program which can migrate
between nodes and has autonomy, cooperation, et al
[4]. MA paradigm is more suitable to energy-aware
WSN. The addition of mobile agents shifts
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computationally intensive tasks away from primitive
sensors to more powerful mobile agents, which enables
energy efficient operations under severely limited
power constraints. However adequate deployment of
MAs remains an open problem due to constrained
bandwidth when the numbers of nodes and MAs
increase. In this paper, a deployment strategy of MAs
in WSNs is proposed, which integrates the impacts of
creation sequence, priority and energy consumption of
MAs. Genetic algorithm (GA) is engaged to optimize
the deployment strategy. The simulation results show
the influence of deployment strategy on energy
consumption and time delay. Finally, the deployment
strategy of MAs is validated by quality inspection on
manufacturing.
2. Deployment problem of mobile agents
Spatial coverage and structural diversity of WSNs
make it fit for large-range and multiple-object
monitoring. For WSNs, a predominant concern is
energy efficiency. Indeed, energy efficiency is the
chief reason that the multihop ad hoc architecture that
relays packets in short distances is considered superior
over the one-hop network with fixed access points or
gateway nodes. In WSN, however, the bandwidth is
limited and the connection is easily affected by the
surrounding environments. C/S model requires
transmitting vast data, which consumes high
bandwidth and needs continuous and steady
connection. There are a few drawbacks with C/S model
that might prevent it from being used in WSNs. First,
client/server-based computing generally requires many
round trips over the network in order to complete one
computation. All computation consumes network
bandwidth and communication energy. The network
connection needs to be alive and healthy the entire
time of the transaction, otherwise the transaction has to
restart if it can at all. Second, there have to be some
kind of supernodes in the sensor network served as the
 processing centers which have large storage, high
computing capabilities, and consume much energy. But
in some automatic and homogeneous sensor networks,
this is not always the case. Given the unreliability and
low bandwidth of the wireless link used in sensor
networks, client/server-based computing is not
appropriate to carry out the collaborative processing
between multiple nodes [5].
MAs process data locally, which reduces the
capability of program codes and decreases the demand
for network bandwidth. Uninterrupted steady
connections between sensor nodes (SNs) are not
required and only short-time connection is needed
when mobile agents are transferring. Mobile agent
based WSN can integrates intelligent soft-computing
algorithms, WSN and mobile agent technology.
Lots of Sensor Nodes (SNodes) and a Central
Service Node (CSNode) are randomly distributed in
WSNs. Task programs are updated dynamically due to
limited memory of SNodes. SNodes are aware of
energy consumption and usually remain in sleeping
status; switch into working status when executing
tasks; and automatically return to sleeping status after
completing tasks. CSNode stores diverse MAs which
can deal with the requests from SNodes.
Once receiving a request from SNodes, CSNode
initializes a MA according with the request; then the
MA is dispatched to the node where the request is from
and implements tasks; the MA returns results to
CSNode after completing tasks; finally, the MA is
destroyed locally, as depicted in Figure 1. There exist
three data transfers, including two message transfers
and one MA transfer. The requests from SNodes to
CSNode and the results from MAs to CSNode are
transferred in message mode. Due to constraint
bandwidth, the sequence of data transfers needs
scheduling correctly. Generally, a message datagram,
which is smaller than a MA, can be ignored. Hence the
scheduling of data transfers is simplified into the
deployment of MAs in WSNs.
Figure 1. Deployment process of mobile agents
CSNode might receive many requests from SNodes
in a short interval. CSNode initializes different MAs
according to the requests. The MAs can not be
dispatched immediately owing to constraint bandwidth.
CSNode puts the MAs into a Task Queue (TQ) in
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temporal sequence that the requests are received and
the agent in head of TQ is firstly dispatched, named
sequential deployment. Sequential deployment,
however, neglects energy consumption and time delay,
which are important to MAs introduced in WSNs.
Moreover, sequential deployment neglects the
emergence degree of agents. Some requests have to
stay overtime in TQ, which might lead to a network
failure. Thus, a deployment strategy of MAs in WSNs,
which synthesizes creation sequence, priority and
energy consumption of MAs, has to be proposed.
3. Optimized deployment strategy
3.1. Key factors of deployment
CSNode deploys the MAs in TQ with consideration
of three key factors: creation sequence, priority of
agents and energy consumption.
3.1.1. Creation sequence C . Denote the sequence that
CSNode receives the requests from SNodes. MAs are
dispatched by creation sequence: a new MA is put in
tail of task queue; the MA in head of TQ will be firstly
dispatched.
3.1.2. Priority of agents I . Denote the urgency
degree of requests: 0 is the highest priority, 1 is middle
priority and 2 is the lowest priority. MAs with higher
priority should be dispatched preferentially: a new MA
will be put in the front of MAs with lower priority, if it
holds the higher priority than MAs in TQ [6].
3.1.3. Energy consumption Q . Sensor nodes are
normally composed of four basic units [7]: a sensing
unit, a processing unit, a communication unit, and a
power unit. However, since the energy consumed in
sensing and power supporting are the same for both
modes, we choose to neglect these factor. Here, we
denote the energy consumption for completing
requests, including two parts: transmission energy
Qtrans and computation energy Qcalc . The transmission
energy is calculated by the following process.
For both two computing models, given minimum
transmission power P0,trans along a standard distance d 0 ,
instantaneous transmission power is in direct
proportion to the square of transmission distance d i
between CSNode and i th SNode [8]
 di2 (4π )2 β
Pi ,trans = × × P0,trans , (1)
d02 Gt Gr λ 2
where Gt , Gr are transmission gain and receiving gain
respectively. Wavelength λ is the ratio of speed of
light c and carrier frequency f and β is the system
loss factor. So the transmission energy is
Qi ,trans = Pi ,trans × ti ,trans .
Assume that the network transfer rate is vn , the
transmitted data file size is s f (the size of raw data
each node collects), the mobile agent size sa , the
number of sensor nodes is p , the number of agents is
m , and the number of sensor nodes is n that each
agent migrates (the processing center is not included).
Notice that p = m × n . Thus, for client/server-based
computing, the transmission time is
mns f
ti ,trans = . (3)
vn
And for mobile-agent-based computing, the time
used to transfer the agents is
( m + n ) sa
ti ,trans = (4)
vn
since it takes nsa / vn for the m mobile agents to
migrate among the n sensor nodes simultaneously and
it takes msa / vn for cluster head to receive agents in
sequence after they finish the migration [5].
Assume that computation power of SNodes is P0,calc
and standard operational frequency is f 0 , the current
operation frequency is f j . For both two computing
models, computation energy is in direct proportion to
the square of current operational frequency f j2 [9]
Pi ,calc = ( f j f 0 ) × P0,calc .
2 The higher the fitness is, the better the deployment
Therefore, the computation energy is
Qi ,calc = Pi ,calc × ti ,calc .
We assume that the data processing rate is vd with
standard operational frequency f 0 . Thus, for
client/server-based computing, the computation time
ti ,calc can be calculated as follows:
mns f
ti ,calc = (7)
vd
And for mobile-agent-based computing, the time used
to execute the processing code locally is [5]:
( m + n ) sa
ti ,calc = (8)
vd
We must notice that the model described above is
analytical. Actually, however, some of the components
are difficult to measure in practice. The most difficult
one is transmission time, where retransmission and
error control are not considered. Unfortunately, these
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factors occur quite often in sensor networks because of
the use of wireless link. Therefore, we develop
simulation modes for more accurate estimation of the
transmission time ti ,trans .
3.2. Integrated metric
(2)
An integrated metric R for the deployment of MAs
in WSNs is designed with synthetical consideration of
three before-mentioned key factors C , I and Q .
Firstly, for considering the degree of urgencies of
requests, energy consumption factor Q is revised by
priority factor I :
Qi′ = Qi ,trans × I i + Qi ,calc . (9)
Secondly, for considering the order of different MAs,
assign the proportional coefficients of deployment
sequence of MAs in TQ, i th coefficient is
si = N + 1 − i , (10)
where N is the number of MAs in TQ.
Then the integrated metric of deployment of MAs
can be calculated as follows:
R = ∑ i =1 si × Qi′ .
N
(11)
3.3. Deployment optimization by genetic
algorithm
1) Chromosome: denote deployment sequence of MAs
in TQ, each gene is an agent.
2) Fitness function: the reciprocal of integrated metric.
(5)
sequence of MAs is.
Fitness = R −1 = 1 ∑ i =1 si × Qi′ .
N
(12)
(6)
3) Genetic operators:
− Reproduction: copy optimal individuals from
last generation to next generation.
− Crossover: choose an old individual from last
generation randomly and then exchange its two genes
and put it into next generation.
− Mutation: create a new sequence of MAs as an
individual in next generation.
Arrange MAs in TQ according to the optimal
individual of GA and dispatch the MA in head of TQ to
the node where the request comes from.
4. Performance evaluation
Adequate deployment strategy of MAs can ensure
the requests from SNodes are responded rapidly and
decrease the energy consumption in WSNs. Two
 performance metrics are adopted to evaluate the Thus, MA paradigm can effectively ensure that
deployment strategy of MAs: CSNode respond rapidly the requests from SNodes.
− Energy consumption: include transmission
energy and computation energy.
− Time delay: denote the interval from the time
that CSNode receives the request from SNode to the
time that CSNode dispatches the relevant MA.

4.1. Experiment parameter setup

The range of WSN is 400m × 300m , the coordinates

of 20 SNodes are ( xi , yi ) respectively and CSNode is (a)
placed in (200,150) . Parameters of WSNs are listed in
Table 1. The priority of MAs is divided into 0, 1 and 2,
including 1, 5 and 4 MAs respectively, whose size and
standard execution time are listed in Table 2. MAs with
higher priority can request ones with lower priority.
The requests are stochastically created with total
probability ρ = 0.8 . The requests with 0, 1 and 2
priorities hold the proportion 0.4, 0.3 and 0.3
respectively. Parameters of GA: the number of
individuals is 50 and the probabilities of reproduction, (b)
crossover and mutation are 0.1, 0.6 and 0.3 Figure 2. Comparison of different paradigms: (a)
respectively; the max generation is 400 and the Energy consumption (b) Time delay.
evolution is terminated once the optimal individuals of
successive 20 generations remain the same.

Table 1. Parameters setup of WSNs

B Gt Gr β f P0,trans f0 P0, calc
2KB/s 2 2 1 2.4GHz 25mW 10MHz 25mW

Table 2. Size and standard execution time of MAs

Priority Size / bytes Standard time / seconds
0 200 0.162 (a)
1 400 0.187, 0.208, 0.297, 0.578, 1.218
2 600 1.632, 1.895, 1.712, 1.883

4.2. Effect of different paradigms

Analyze the performance of C/S paradigm and MA

paradigm in WSNs. SNode transmits 2250 bytes of data
to CSNode whenever a request is processed in C/S
paradigm; CSNode transfers an agent of 200-600 bytes
to SNode in MA paradigm. 10s simulations with the (b)
same parameters are carried out and the results are
depicted in Figure 2. Energy consumptions vs. time of Figure 3. Comparison of different deployment
two paradigms are linear and energy consumption in strategies: (a) Energy consumption (b) Time delay.
C/S paradigm is far more than in MA paradigm.
Compared with C/S paradigm, MA paradigm can save 4.3. Effect of deployment strategies
energy and is more suitable to WSNs with constrained
energy. Time delay vs. time of C/S paradigm increases Compare the sequential deployment and the
quickly while that of MA paradigm remains stable. optimized deployment of MAs in WSNs. 10s
simulations with the same parameters are carried out

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 and the results are shown in Figure 3. Energy
consumption vs. time of two deployment strategies is
linear and energy consumption in the former strategy is
a little more than in the latter one at the same time.
Time delay of optimized deployment is steady while
that of sequential deployment fluctuates heavily, which
makes some MAs fail. Therefore, the optimized
deployment can stabilize the response time of CSNode
to requests from SNodes.
5. Quality inspection on manufacturing
WSNs are inherently suitable to a distributed system
for quality inspection. Quality inspection of printed
circuit board (PCB) in electronic equipments is utilized
to validate the performance of deployment strategy of
MAs, as depicted in Figure 4.
Figure 4. Quality inspection by mobile agents on
manufacturing.
The production of PCB passes through three
successive phases when some unpredictable defects
might occur:
− Bare Board Phase: open circuit, short circuit,
missing hole and missing footprint.
− Surface Mounting Device (SMD) Phase:
position decline, missing device and wrong type.
− Dual-in-Line-Package (DIP) Chip Phase:
position decline, missing chip, inversion, wrong type
and rosin joint.
5.1. Inspection agents with different priorities
− Estimation agents with 0 priority: estimate the
size of defects. Defects with less than 4 pixels are
neglected. The estimation process can be described as
follows: take a PCB without defects as standard PCB,
and then compare the RGB value of each pixel of the
pending PCB with that of standard PCB and determine
the maximum difference value M :
( )
M = max R ija − R bij + G ija − G ijb + Bija − Bijb
. (13)
i = 1 ~ m, j = 1 ~ n
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where RGB denotes three primary colors, m, n are the
height and width of PCB in pixels respectively. Take
Y = M × 0.8 as the threshold. Confirm a rectangle that
surrounds all pixels whose difference value is over Y
and calculate the number of pixels in the rectangle S1 ;
or count the number of all pixels whose difference
value is over Y as S2 . Compare S1 with S2 , if
S 2 < S1 × 0.5 , let the number of pixels of the defect
S = S1 ; otherwise S = S2 . Let location accuracy
ϕ = S×4/3 .
− Location agents with 1 priority: locate the
positions of defects, divided into five grades with
different accuracy:
Accuracy/pixels 64×48 32×24 16×12 8×6 4×3
Time/seconds 0.187 0.208 0.297 0.578 1.218
Location agents locate defects in low accuracy, the
center O1 and then do in high accuracy, the center O2 .
Compare d =| O1O2 | with ϕ / 2 , if d ≤ ϕ / 2 , the
location result is accurate; otherwise, inaccurate.
− Identification agents with 2 priorities: engage a
feedforward neural network with one-hidden-layer of
10 neurons to identify defect types. Six inputs of the
neural network denote average of RGB of defect
region in standard PCB and pending PCB respectively
and one output is defect type. The training set consists
of 40 samples with 10 samples every type. Let
maximum training error δ = 0.01 and train the neural
network. The trained neural network is embedded into
identification agents and used to identify defect types.
The priority and type of MAs are decided by
requests instead of stochastical creation. The
deployment process of MAs has been analyzed in
simulation experiment. Accuracy of defect location in
different phases and identification of defect types in
bare board are evaluated in the following experiments.
5.2. Accuracy of defect location and
identification
Take three phases of PCBs without defects as
standard PCBs respectively. Location agents with
different accuracy are dispatched to SNodes to locate
200 defects in bare boards, 200 defects in SMD boards
and 100 defects in DIP chip boards, and the results are
listed in Table 3.
Table 3. Accuracy of defect location
PCB Bare SMD DIP chip
Num. of 200 200 100
Num.l of 170 180 192
lAccuracy
i 87.5% 90% 96%
Take bare board without defects as standard PCB
and then dispatch identification agents to SNodes to
 identify 200 defects in bare boards. 191 defects are
identified into correct types and identification accuracy
is up to 95.5%.
6. Conclusions
Mobile agent technology can boost the performance
on energy consumption and cooperation in wireless
sensor networks. The poor ability and memory are
compensated with the cooperation among mobile
agents. The optimized deployment strategy of mobile
agents in wireless sensor networks synthesizes the
creation sequence, priority and energy consumption of
mobile agents. It can address the deployment of mobile
agents in terms of constraint bandwidth when the
numbers of nodes and mobile agents increase. The
simulation results show the optimized strategy
decrease the energy consumption and time delay in
wireless sensor network. Thus, the network lifetime is
prolonged and the real-time ability is boosted. Finally,
the performance of optimized deployment strategy of
mobile agents has been validated in quality inspection
on manufacturing.
Acknowledgement
This paper is sponsored by National Natural
Science Foundation of China (No. 60373014; No.
50175056).
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