Sandstorm monitoring system architecture using agents and sensor networks

There has been a tremendous growth in the use of wireless networks on Saudi Arabian highways, especially in the eastern region, which are subject to several sandstorms and sand dunes that yield to reduced visibility, unsafe roads and sometimes it is life threatening. This makes wireless sensor networks (WSNs) bring very promising, desired and effective natural solution to provide safe roads. This paper presents an agent-based system architecture approach for data dissemination in a WSN for sandstorm monitoring. This system architecture consists of three layers of agents, including the interface, routing and data collection layer. The interface agent interacts with the users to fulfill their interests, whereas the data collection layer has direct access to sensor nodes. The routing agent generates the optimized query plan to the cluster agent, performs data dissemination and efficient in-network processing with the other agents at the routing layer, and captures the required data through the data collection layer. This paper provides the agents' architecture, design and implementations that enable them to communicate and work together to disseminate and gather data in WSNs.