Agent‐based task representation and processing in pervasive computing environment

Abstract

AbstractIt is an effective approach to adopt software agent in pervasive computing (Per‐Com) environment. Meanwhile, task execution is the key problem which is affected directly by task representation method in Per‐Com environment. The task of agent in Per‐Com environment is dynamic and changeful, so the task representation should be flexible and agent‐oriented. However, most of the existing task representation methods cannot present task relationship clearly and lack unified format, which leads to a drawback that the corresponding task processing efficiency is not satisfying. In this paper, firstly, an agent‐based Per‐Com architecture is presented in which the agent is endowed with certain role. Secondly, through analyzing task relationship, an agent role based task relationship tree (TRT) model and an XML‐based agent task representation method are proposed. Thirdly, based on TRT, an agent task decomposing and online multi‐agent scheduling algorithm are presented to solve time‐optimal problems. Meanwhile, a load balancing strategy based on probability is proposed to increase agent utilization. Finally, a prototype of an application on traffic monitoring is presented. The results of evaluation indicate that the architecture is feasible and the simulation tests of time performance indicate that the proposed TRT‐based task processing methods have a better performance than others. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.