A Multi - Agent Geo - Simulation Model for Intelligent Sensor Web Spatial Coverage Management Using IVGE

A Sensor Web (SW) consists of a large collection of small nodes providing collaborative and distributed sensing abilities in unpredictable environments. Nodes composing such a SW are characterized by resource restrictions, especially energy, processing power, and communication capacities. A sensor web can be thought of as a spatially and functionally distributed complex system evolving in and interacting with a geographic environment. So far, the majority of the currently deployed SWs has been mainly used for prototyping purposes. These SWs operate without considering a management scheme and do not take into account the geographic environment characteristics in which they are deployed. Multi-Agent Geo-Simulation (MAGS) is a recent modeling and simulation paradigm which provides a flexible approach that can be used to analyze complex systems such as SW in large-scale and complex georeferenced environments. In this paper, we propose to use a MAGS approach to support SW management. Moreover, we present Sensor-MAGS, a multi-agent geo-simulation system which manages sensor nodes using Informed Virtual Geographic Environments (IVGE). This system is applied in the context of a water resource monitoring project. Keywords—Sensor Web, Multi-Agent Systems, Geo-Simulation, Virtual Geographic Environment, Sensor Web Management.