CBID: A Scalable Method for Distributed Data

Aggregation in WSNs

Aristides Mpitziopoulos1 , Damianos Gavalas1 , Charalambos Konstantopoulos2 ,

and Grammati Pantziou3
1
¡Department of Cultural Technology and Communication, University of the
Aegean, Lesvos, Greece
(crmaris,dgavalas)&aegean.gr
¿
2
¡Department of Informatics, University of Piraeus, Greece
konstant@cti.gr
¿
3
¡Department of Informatics, Technological Educational Institution of Athens,
Athens, Greece
pantziou@teiath.gr
¿

Abstract. Mobile Agents (MAs) are referred to as autonomous pro-

grams able to move among network nodes towards the completion of an
assigned task. Our proposal involves MA middleware in WSNs to achieve
higher energy savings and reduced response time when considering data
retrieval and aggregation. To meet this objective we exploit the cloning
feature of MAs, i.e. their ability to create identical copies of themselves
that work in parallel with the original object. Herein we present CBID, a
novel algorithm that calculates near-optimal routes for MAs that incre-
mentally fuse the data as they visit the Sensor Nodes (SNs) while also
enabling fast updates on the designed itineraries upon changes of network
topology. CBID dispatches in parallel a number of MAs that sequentially
visit sensor nodes arranged in tree structures and upon visiting an SN
with two or more child SNs, the MAs (master MAs) clone of themselves
with each clone (slave MA) visiting a tree branch. When all slave MAs
return to that SN, they deliver their collected data to the master MA
and are then disposed of. This results in a significant reduction of the
overall energy expenditure and response time. Simulation results prove
the superiority of CBID compared to alternative algorithms.

Key words: data fusion, itinerary design, mobile agents, routing, Wire-
less Sensor Networks

1 Introduction

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) typically comprise hundreds or even thou-

sands of Sensor Nodes (SNs). These SNs are often randomly deployed in a sen-
sor field and form an infrastructure-less network. Each SN has the capability to
collect data and route it back to a Processing Element (PE) or sink via ad hoc
connections, using neighbor nodes as relays. A sensor consists of five basic parts:
sensing unit, central processing unit (CPU), storage unit, transceiver unit and
power unit [1].
Unlike other type of networks WSNs are subject to a set of resource con-
straints such as limited energy availability of SNs [2] [3], since in most cases there
are only dependant to battery supply, limited network communication band-
width and hardware-network heterogeneity. In a typical WSN, SNs are equipped
with restricted computational power and limited amount of memory for data-
signal processing and task scheduling. Furthermore, as SNs are usually deployed
to hostile environments they are prone to failures and the replacement of failed
SNs is practically impossible in case of large-scale WSNs or embedded sensors.
Given the fact that WSNs can be used in security sensitive applications (e.g. se-
cure area monitoring and target detection [1]) the above-mentioned limitations
represent critical challenges.
WSNs can be used in a variety of applications, including environment moni-
toring, automatic target detection and tracking, battlefield surveillance, remote
sensing, global awareness, etc [1]. Quite a few of the above applications require
remote retrieval of sensor readings and are known to be data-intensive. An effi-
cient method to reduce the volume of data communicated within a WSN is data
fusion. In data fusion, readings from multiple SNs are combined and processed
leading to more accurate data with significant smaller size, since redundant read-
ings for neighbor SNs are filtered [4]. However suitable middleware solutions are
required to utilize data fusion in WSNs. In this context, middleware is defined
as a software layer, which functions as an interface between sensor nodes and
the data fusion logic [5].
Data fusion tasks involve processing and aggregation of data and knowledge
from different sources with the aim of maximizing the useful information content
[4]. They improve reliability while offering the opportunity to minimize the data
retained. Multiple sensor data fusion is an evolving technology, concerning the
problem of how to fuse data from multiple sensors in order to make a more
accurate estimation of the environment [6]. Applications of data fusion cross a
wide spectrum including automated target recognition, guidance and control of
autonomous vehicles, medical diagnosis, smart buildings etc [7]; they are usually
time-critical, cover a large geographical area and require reliable delivery of
accurate information for their completion. Most energy-efficient proposals are
based on the traditional client/server computing model to handle multisensor
data fusion in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) [8] [9] [10]; in that model, each
sensor sends its sensory data to a back-end processing element (PE) or sink.
However, as advances in sensor technology and computer networking allow the
deployment of large amount of smaller and cheaper sensors, huge volumes of
data need to be processed in real-time giving rise to serious scalability concerns.
Herein we present CBID (Clone-Based Itinerary Design), a novel algorithm
that addresses the itinerary optimization problem for MAs that incrementally
fuse the data as they visit the WSN nodes. An inviting side-effect of CBID is
that it enables a fast update of designed itineraries which is a crucial issue for
highly dynamic topologies. For instance, the fast execution of CBID makes it
suitable for responding to jamming/interference [11] and also in applications that
include tracking and monitoring of moving objects. CBID not only determines
the proper number of MAs for minimizing the total data fusion cost but also
constructs low cost itineraries for each of them.
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows: Section 2 introduces
the MA computing model and makes a reference to suitability, constraints and
application fields of MAs in the context of WSNs. Section 3 reviews works related
to our research. Section 4 discusses the design and functionality of our heuristic
algorithm for designing near-optimal itineraries for MAs performing data fusion
and security tasks in WSNs. Simulation results are presented in Section 5, while
Section 6 concludes the paper and suggests future directions for our work.

2 Mobile Agents

MAs represent a relatively recent trend in distributed computing, which address

more efficiently the flexibility and scalability problems of centralized models.
The term MA [12] refers to an autonomous application program able to move
among network nodes and act on behalf of users towards the completion of an
assigned task. In addition MAs are able to interact with legacy systems. An MA
can be programmed to locally perform data processing and filtering on each SN
according to the data it already carries. The fused data are then carried by the
MA to the next SN repeating the same procedure (see Fig. 1(a)).
Recently MAs have been proposed for efficient data dissemination in WSNs
[13] [14] [6] [15]. In a traditional client/server-based computing scheme, data
from multiple nodes is transferred to a processing system (see Fig. 1(b)). Due
to the bandwidth limitations of contemporary WSNs (e.g. wired networks), the
data traffic derived from remote interactions may far exceed the capacity of a
WSN. This serious scalability problem may be sufficiently addressed through
MAs. The key idea is to delegate multiple MAs to the SNs of a WSN; these MAs
can perform local rather than remote interactions with legacy systems, apply
intelligent filtering operations thereby eliminating redundancy in the transferred
data and decreasing the network overhead associated with data transfer. This
approach also implies more reasonable usage of the nodes’ radio unit (i.e. their
most energy consuming part), hence prolonged network lifetime.
It should be stressed that when MAs are employed for data fusion tasks
in WSNs the choice of agents’ itineraries (order of visited sensors) is crucial
since it considerably affects the overall energy consumption and data fusion cost.
Itinerary scheduling can be classified as dynamic, static or hybrid 1 . The most
1
A dynamic itinerary is determined on the fly at each hop of the MA, while a static
itinerary is computed at the PE prior to the MA migration. In a hybrid approach
the SNs to be visited are selected by the PE but the visiting order is decided on the
fly by the MA. Although improving the optimality of the MA’s itinerary compared
to hybrid and static approaches, the dynamic approach is more time-expensive (the
 (a) (b)

Fig. 1. Centralized vs. Mobile Agents-based data fusion in WSNs

notable drawback of existing solutions that have been proposed in the literature
for determining the routes of the MAs [16] [17] [18] [19] is that they rely on
a single MA to visit and fuse the data from the entire network. However, this
approach is not efficient for large-scale WSNs since the MA accumulates large
amounts of data and experiences prolonged response time.

2.1 Suitability, Constraints and Application Fields of MAs in the

Context of WSNs

Lange and Oshima listed seven good reasons to use MAs [20]: reducing network
load, overcoming network latency, robust and fault-tolerant performance, etc.
The MA-based computing model enables moving the code (processing) to the
data rather than transferring raw data to the processing module. By transmitting
the computation engine instead of data, this model offers decreased network
overhead, distribution of network load, adaptability, stability and autonomy.
Although the role of MAs in distributed computing is still being debated
mainly because security concerns [21], several applications have shown clear ev-
idence of benefiting from the use of MAs [22], including e-commerce and m-
commerce trading [23], distributed information retrieval [24], network awareness
[25], network & systems management [21] [26] [27], etc. Network-robust appli-
cations are also of great interest in military situations today. MAs are used to
monitor and react instantly to the continuously changing network conditions
and guarantee successful performance of the application tasks.
MAs have also found a natural fit in the field of distributed sensor networks;
hence, a significant amount of research has been dedicated in proposing ways for
’find-next-SN’ function is executed on each migration step), consumes valuable sensor
nodes energy resources and implies larger MA sizes (the more intelligence integrated
within the agent, the larger its size).
the efficient usage of MAs in the context of WSNs. In particular, MAs have been
proposed for enabling dynamically reconfigurable WSNs through easy develop-
ment of adaptive and application-specific software for SNs [28], for separating
SNs in clusters [29], in multi-resolution data integration [14] and fusion [15], data
dissemination [16] and location tracking of moving objects [30] [14] [31]. These
applications involve the usage of multi-hop MAs visiting large numbers of SNs.
Security has been identified as the main reason that hinders the adoption
of MAs as the next generation distributed computing paradigm. In the con-
text of WSNs, the most crucial security risk in using MAs is the possibility of
tampering an agent. The MA’s code can be modified while migrating among
SNs by a malicious SN. To address this security risk several countermeasures
can be utilized to detect any manipulation made by an adversary, for instance
Encrypted Functions (EF) [32], Cryptographic Traces [33] [34], Chained MAC
protocol [35], Watermarking [36], Fingerprinting [36], Zero-knowledge proofs [37]
and the Secure secret sharing scheme [37].

3 Related work

WSNs pose new challenges due to their scarce bandwidth and energy limitations.
To solve the problem of the overwhelming data traffic Qi et al. in [18] and [6]
proposed the MA-based Distributed Sensor Network (MADSN) for scalable and
energy-efficient data aggregation. By transmitting the software code (MA) to
sensor nodes, a large amount of sensory data may be filtered at the source by
eliminating the redundancy. An MA may visit a number of sensors and progres-
sively fuse retrieved sensory data, prior to returning back to the PE to deliver
the data. This scheme may be more efficient than traditional client/server model;
within the latter model, raw sensory data are transmitted to the PE where data
fusion takes place. In [15] [38] the higher performance of the MASDN over the
client/server model is demonstrated through both analytical study and simu-
lations. A misconception shared among these studies is that they both assume
constant MA size, a non-realistic assumption since MAs grow larger as they
collect data from distributed nodes [39].
Chen et al. proposed the Mobile Agent Directed Diffusion (MADD) in [17] as
an improvement to MA-Based Distributed Sensor Network (MADSN) and Multi-
Resolution Integration (MRI) algorithm. The limitation of clustering in MASDN
is addressed by using a flat network architecture, which, as the authors claim, is
more suitable for a wide range of WSNs applications compared to cluster-based
architectures. Although MADD addressed many constraints of MASDN, it failed
to address the poor scalability of the approach wherein a single MA object
visits sequentially the SNs for data collection. This renders both algorithms
inappropriate for large-scale WSNs wherein the end-to-end delay and the size of
the MA would exhibit quadratic growth with the number of visited SNs.
Xu and Qi in [40] study the problem of determining MA itinerary for col-
laborative processing and models the Dynamic Mobile Agent Planning (DMAP)
problem. They present two itinerary planning algorithms, ISMAP and IDMAP.
The main drawback of these algorithms is their poor scalability as they both
rely on a single MA.
Chen et al. in [16] proposed the Mobile Agent Based Wireless Sensor Net-
work (MAWSN) architecture for filtering and aggregating data in planar sensor
network architectures. In MAWSN according to the authors, MAs are used to:
(a) eliminate data redundancy among SNs; (b) eliminate spatial redundancy
among neighbor SNs by MA assisted data aggregation; (c) reduce communica-
tion overhead. The authors proved via simulations that MAWSN improved the
performance over the client/server model in terms of energy consumption and
packet deliver ratio. However, as the authors admit, MAWSN involve longer end-
to-end latency under certain conditions due to the fact that only a single MA is
employed in MAWSN.
The work presented in [18] [19] is more directly related to the research de-
scribed herein since they both propose methodologies for optimizing static MA
itineraries. Qi and Wang in [18] proposed two heuristics to optimize the itinerary
of MAs performing data fusion tasks. In Local Closest First (LCF) algorithm,
each MA starts its route from the PE and searches for the next destination with
the shortest distance to its current location. In Global Closest First (GCF) algo-
rithm, MAs also start their itinerary from the PE node and select the SN closest
to the center of the surveillance region as the next-hop destination.
The output of LCF-like algorithms though highly depends on the MA original
location, while the nodes left to be visited last are typically associated with high
migration cost [41] the reason for this is that they search for the next destination
among the nodes adjacent to the MA’s current location, instead of looking at the
‘global’ network distance matrix. On the other hand, GCF produces in most cases
messier routes than LCF and repetitive MA oscillations around the region center,
resulting in long route paths and unacceptably poor performance [15] [19]. Wu et
al. proposed a genetic algorithm-based solution for computing routes for an MA
that incrementally fuses the data as it visits the nodes in a WSN [19]. Although
providing superior performance (lower cost) than LCF and GCF algorithms,
this approach implies a time-expensive optimal itinerary calculation (genetic
algorithms typically start their execution with a random solution ‘vector’ which
is improved as the execution progresses), which is unacceptable for time-critical
applications, e.g. in target detection and tracking.
Most importantly, all the approaches proposed in [16] [17] [15] [19] [40] involve
the use of a single MA object launched from the PE that sequentially visits all
sensors, regardless of their physical location on the plane. Their performance is
satisfactory for small WSNs; however, it deteriorates as the network size grows
and the sensor distributions become more complicated. This is because both the
MA’s round-trip delay and the overall migration cost increases exponentially
with network size, as the traveling MA accumulates into its state data from
visited sensors [39] [27]. The growing MA’s state size not only results in increased
consumption of the limited wireless bandwidth, but also consumes the limited
energy supplies of sensor nodes.
 To address the above-mentioned problems we have proposed the Near Opti-
mal Itinerary Design (NOID) algorithm in a previous work [42]. This algorithm
adapts a method usually applied in network design problems, namely the Esau-
Williams (E-W) heuristic [43], in the specific requirements of the MA itinerary
optimization problem, suggesting a number of near-optimal MA itineraries that
minimize the overall data fusion cost. To keep the energy consumption low NOID
recognizes that MAs become “heavier” while visiting SNs without returning back
to the PE to deliver the collected data so it restricts the number of migrations
performed by individual MAs, thereby promoting the parallel employment of
multiple cooperating MAs, each visiting a subset of sensors.
NOID has been shown to perform better than LCF and GCF at the expense
of higher algorithmic complexity (i.e. prolonged execution time). Apart from
its increased complexity, NOID performs worse than CBID as it does not take
advantage of the MAs’ cloning capability. Furthermore, CBID follows a more
direct approach to the problem of determining low cost MA itineraries. Specif-
ically, based on an accurate formula for the total energy spending during MA
migration, CBID follows a greedy-like approach for distributing SNs in multiple
MA itineraries. Essentially CBID determines a spanning forest of trees in the
network calculates efficient itineraries and eventually assigns these itineraries to
individual MAs. Like NOID, CBID assumes a general aggregation model where
data size post aggregation is not necessarily constant. Hence, unlike existing MA
heuristics that employ a single MA (i.e. LCF, GCF), CBID pays attention to the
fact that the data load of MAs is increasing as they move along their itineraries.
To further decrease the data load of the MAs, in CBID data collection starts
from the outer leaf nodes of the spanning trees in contrast with NOID where
MAs start data collection immediately from the first nodes of the itineraries.

4 The CBID Algorithm

In this section we present CBID, a novel algorithm that determines the number
of MAs that should be involved in data fusion tasks as well as their correspond-
ing near-optimal itineraries in WSN environments. CBID’s execution comprises
three phases. In the first phase a heuristic algorithm is used to separate WSN
nodes in tree structures rooted at the PE, depending on the WSN deployment
pattern. The second phase builds upon the trees derived during the first phase to
design the actual itineraries followed by MAs, exploiting their cloning capability
wherever appropriate to achieve extra data fusion cost gains. The third phase is
activated in the event of WSN topology changes to enable cost-effective updates
of MA itineraries.
The overall cost per polling interval over all itineraries is calculated according
to the following cost function:

∣𝐼∣ ∣𝐼𝑖 ∣−1

∑ ∑
𝑐𝑡𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 = (𝑑𝑗 + 𝑠) ∗ 𝑐𝑘,𝑙 𝑘, 𝑙 ∈ {0, 𝑛 − 1} (1)
𝑖=1 𝑗=0
 where ∣𝐼∣ denotes the number of agent itineraries, ∣𝐼𝑖 ∣ represents the number
of nodes included into the 𝑖𝑡ℎ MA itinerary, 𝑑𝑗 is the amount of data collected by
the 𝑖𝑡ℎ MA on the first 𝑗 visited sensors, 𝑠 the MA initial size and 𝑐𝑘,𝑙 the cost
of utilizing the link (𝑘, 𝑙) traversed by the MA on its 𝑗 𝑡ℎ hop, i.e., the wireless
link connecting sensors 𝑆𝑘 and 𝑆𝑙 (𝑐𝑘,𝑙 is given by the network cost matrix)

4.1 Tree Construction Phase

Fig. 2. Tree structures derived by CBID

 The tree construction phase is completed in two steps. On the first step (ini-
tialization) the PE is ‘connected’ with all sensor nodes located within the PE’s
transmission range (nodes ℎ and 𝑒 illustrated in Fig. 2). These nodes represent
the starting point of the corresponding MA itineraries; namely, the number of
these nodes equals the number of MA itineraries.
To dynamically adjust the number of itineraries, we use the parameter 𝑎 ×
𝑟𝑚𝑎𝑥 where 𝑎 is an input parameter in the range (0, 1] and 𝑟𝑚𝑎𝑥 is the maximum
transmission range of the PE. On the second step (step 2 illustrated in Fig.
2(b)(c)(d)), we attach new nodes to the initially formed trees, so as to maintain
low itinerary cost post the attachment.
The three basic rules that should be taken into account to establish each con-
nection are: (a) the candidate for attachment SN must not be already attached
to another tree; (b) the candidate SN is attached to an in-range SN that provides
a connecting path back to the PE; (c) the SN to be connected must keep the
itinerary cost to minimum compared to other candidate SNs. The connection
cost is calculated in an efficient way, as defined in definition (1) and shown in
(2).
Let as now assume a WSN with the PE connected to a tree with 5 nodes
(nodes 𝑒, 𝑓, 𝜐, 𝑔, 𝑢 in Fig. 2(d)). The more distant from the PE node is 𝑢. The
Connection Cost of the edge (𝑢, 𝜐) is providing by the following definition:

Definition 1. The Connection Cost (𝐶𝐶) of edge (𝑢, 𝜐) is the ensuing itinerary
cost assuming only one MA follows the itinerary after connecting SN 𝑢 to the
tree of SN 𝜐 provided that 𝜐 is in some tree. Otherwise, we have 𝐶𝐶(𝑢,𝜐) = ∞.

𝐶𝐶(𝑢,𝜐) = 𝑠 ⋅ (𝐶𝑃 𝐸,𝑒 + 𝐶𝑒,𝑓 + 𝐶𝑓,𝜐 + 𝐶𝜐,𝑢 )

+ (𝑑𝑓 + 𝑠) ⋅ 𝐶𝑢,𝜐 + (2𝑑𝑓 + 𝑠) ⋅ 𝐶𝜐,𝑔 + (3𝑑𝑓 + 𝑠) ⋅ (𝐶𝑔,𝜐 + 𝐶𝜐,𝑓 ) (2)
+ (4𝑑𝑓 + 𝑠) ⋅ 𝐶𝑓,𝑒 + (5𝑑𝑓 + 𝑠) ⋅ 𝐶𝑒,𝑃 𝐸
In (2) the individual costs are calculated taking into account only the spatial
distance 𝐶𝑖,𝑗 between nodes (although additional parameters such as residual
energy could be easily included). Parameter 𝑠 represents the MA initial size in
bytes and 𝑑 equals to the data the MA is carrying (𝑑 in bytes) multiplied with
data fusion coefficient 𝑓 (0 < 𝑓 ≤ 1).
With the use of (2) we choose the SN pairs to be connected in step 2 among
all candidate SNs. On each iteration of the tree construction phase we connect
the SN that provides the smallest 𝐶𝐶 after connection (see Fig. 2(c)).

4.2 Itinerary Design Phase

The end result of the first phase is a number of trees, all rooted at the PE.
The itinerary design uses those tree structures to build cost-effective itineraries
assigned to MAs, wherein the nodes of each tree are assigned to an individual
MA. Each MA (master MA) starts its itinerary from the PE following its assigned
tree structure. When it reaches a ‘parent’ SN with two or more children SNs
(e.g. SN 𝑘 in Fig. 3(a)) it clones itself (see Fig. 3(b)) with each clone (slave MA)
Fig. 3. CBID MA cloning and data collection
assigned to visit a child SN (tree branch) while the master MA remains on the
‘parent’ SN.
When the slave MAs reach the more distant -from the PE- leaf nodes (𝑛
and 𝑞 nodes in Fig. 3(c)), they commence data retrieval. On the way back to the
route, the slave MAs that return to the ‘parent’ SN deliver their collected data to
the master MA and are subsequently self-destroyed (Fig. 3(d)). The master MA
waits for a fixed time period for the arrival of all slave MAs. If this time period
elapses with no return of all slave MAs, it assumes SN failure or communication
disconnection and returns back to the PE following the same route (Fig. 3(e)).
It should be emphasized that the above-described procedure is recursive, that
is if a slave MA, on its way to the more distant leaf SN, visits another ‘parent’
SN, it changes its status to master MA and the same process is repeated.
Using the above-mentioned method the overall data fusion cost and response
time (MA round trip delay) are considerably reduced. This is because CBID
enables the parallel employment of multiple MAs carrying small loads of data
instead of a single MA traveling longer distances and growing heavy, especially
in the last hops of its itinerary[39].
As an example (3) calculates the total cost of CBID for the itinerary that
starts from SN ℎ in Fig. 3(a) while (4) calculates the total cost of the same
itinerary without utilizing MAs cloning feature. In the latter case the MA per-
forms a post-order tree traversal (i.e. it ‘visits’ the left SN first, then the right
SN and then the root.

𝐶(𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑟𝑦ℎ ) = 𝑠 ⋅ (𝐶𝑃 𝐸,ℎ + 𝐶ℎ,𝑖 + 𝐶𝑖,𝑘 ) + 𝑠 ⋅ (𝐶𝑘,𝑙 + 𝐶𝑙,𝑚 + 𝐶𝑚,𝑛 )

+ 𝑠 ⋅ (𝐶𝑘,𝑜 + 𝐶𝑜,𝑝 + 𝐶𝑝,𝑞 ) + (𝑑𝑓 + 𝑠) ⋅ 𝐶𝑛,𝑚 + (2𝑑𝑓 + 𝑠) ⋅ 𝐶𝑚,𝑙
(3)
+ (3𝑑𝑓 + 𝑠) ⋅ 𝐶𝑙,𝑘 + (𝑑𝑓 + 𝑠) ⋅ 𝐶𝑞,𝑝 + (2𝑑𝑓 + 𝑠) ⋅ 𝐶𝑝,𝑜 + (3𝑑𝑓 + 𝑠) ⋅ 𝐶𝑜,𝑘
+ (7𝑑𝑓 + 𝑠) ⋅ 𝐶𝑘,𝑖 + (8𝑑𝑓 + 𝑠) ⋅ 𝐶𝑖,ℎ + (9𝑑𝑓 + 𝑠) ⋅ 𝐶ℎ,𝑃 𝐸

𝐶(𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑟𝑦ℎ−𝑛𝑜−𝑐𝑙𝑜𝑛𝑖𝑛𝑔 ) = 𝑠 ⋅ (𝐶𝑃 𝐸,ℎ + 𝐶ℎ,𝑖 + 𝐶𝑖,𝑘 + 𝐶𝑘,𝑙 + 𝐶𝑙,𝑚 + 𝐶𝑚,𝑛 )

+ (𝑑𝑓 + 𝑠) ⋅ 𝐶𝑛,𝑚 + (2𝑑𝑓 + 𝑠) ⋅ 𝐶𝑚,𝑙 + (3𝑑𝑓 + 𝑠) ⋅ 𝐶𝑙,𝑘
(4)
+ (3𝑑𝑓 + 𝑠) ⋅ (𝐶𝑘,𝑜 + 𝐶𝑜,𝑝 + 𝐶𝑝,𝑞 ) + (4𝑑𝑓 + 𝑠) ⋅ 𝐶𝑞,𝑝 + (5𝑑𝑓 + 𝑠) ⋅ 𝐶𝑝,𝑜
+ (6𝑑𝑓 + 𝑠) ⋅ 𝐶𝑜,𝑘 + (7𝑑𝑓 + 𝑠) ⋅ 𝐶𝑘,𝑖 + (8𝑑𝑓 + 𝑠) ⋅ 𝐶𝑖,ℎ + (9𝑑𝑓 + 𝑠) ⋅ 𝐶ℎ,𝑃 𝐸

As we can see from (3) (CBID) the cost for traversing and collecting data
from nodes 𝑘, 𝑜, 𝑝, 𝑞 is:
𝑠 ⋅ (𝐶𝑘,𝑜 + 𝐶𝑜,𝑝 + 𝐶𝑝,𝑞 ) + (𝑑𝑓 + 𝑠) ⋅ 𝐶𝑞,𝑝 + (2𝑑𝑓 + 𝑠) ⋅ 𝐶𝑝,𝑜 + (3𝑑𝑓 + 𝑠) ⋅ 𝐶𝑜,𝑘
For (4) (without MA cloning) the cost for traversing and collecting data from
the same nodes is highly increased since the MA has to carry besides its own
data code and the data that has already collected from nodes 𝑛, 𝑚, 𝑙. So the cost
becomes:
(3𝑑𝑓 + 𝑠) ⋅ (𝐶𝑘,𝑜 + 𝐶𝑜,𝑝 + 𝐶𝑝,𝑞 ) + (4𝑑𝑓 + 𝑠) ⋅ 𝐶𝑞,𝑝 + (5𝑑𝑓 + 𝑠) ⋅ 𝐶𝑝,𝑜 + (6𝑑𝑓 + 𝑠) ⋅ 𝐶𝑜,𝑘
It is obvious that in trees with more nodes the increase in cost will be pro-
portional.
Fig. 4. Tree update phase of CBID
4.3 Tree Update Phase
The tree update phase takes effect in the likely event of WSN topology changes
(e.g. due to new code deployments, SN failures or interference) to enable cost-
effective and low complexity updates of MA itineraries. The PE is assumed to
periodically ping all SNs (e.g. broadcast energy status queries) and logs possible
topology changes (e.g. not responding nodes or nodes that report low energy
level). When an SN is marked as problematic (i.e. SN 𝑙 in Fig. 4(a)) the PE
takes immediate action and initiates the tree update phase (in this example for
simplicity reasons we assume the failure of only one SN). All the edges starting
or ending at the problematic SN are deleted (see Fig. 4(b)). Then nodes with
limited connectivity (part of cut-off trees) are identified (nodes m and n in Fig.
4(b)). All the cut-off trees nodes having in range working nodes are examined
(see Fig. 4(c)) and the corresponding 𝐶𝐶 values are updated. Finally nodes with
the lowest 𝐶𝐶 value are then connected (nodes 𝑚 and 𝑜 in Fig. 4(d)).
Tree update phase is of low complexity compared to the tree construction
phase. Hence, it ensures itineraries rescheduling in the face of WSN topology
changes.

5 Simulation Results

Table 1. Simulation Parameters

Parameter Value
Simulated plane (𝑚2 ) 800 × 600
# Sensors 50
Sensors transmission power (dBm) 4
Sensors transmission range (m),assuming clear terrain 100
Network transfer rate (Kbps) 250
Initial sensors battery lifetime 100 energy units
MA execution time at each sensor (processing delay, in msec) 50
MA instantiation delay (msec) 10
MA code size (𝑠, in bytes) 1000
Bytes accumulated by the MA at each sensor (𝑑, in bytes) 200
Parameter 𝑎 (CBID) 1
Data fusion coefficient (𝑓 ) 1

Simulations have been conducted using a Delphi-based tool [44] and compare
the performance of CBID against NOID, LCF and GCF algorithms in terms of
the overall itinerary length, data fusion cost and response time. Unless otherwise
specified, the parameters used throughout the simulation tests are those shown
in Table I. To measure the overall data fusion cost for all algorithms we used the
cost function given in Equation (1) which takes into account the overall number
of agent itineraries, the amount of data collected from each node, the MA initial
size and the physical distance of wireless links. The simulation results presented
herein have been averaged over fifty simulation runs (i.e. fifty different network
topologies).
Fig. 5 illustrates representative screens of our Delphi-based simulator that
draw the output of the four MA-based distributed data fusion algorithms. The
settings used in the simulation illustrated in Fig. 5 are those shown in Table
I. The circle in Fig. 5(b) denotes the network center. Notably, GCF typically
suggests wireless hops among distant sensor nodes which are not within mutual
transmission range and, hence, should be routed through intermediate nodes,
thereby frequently requiring complex routing decisions and increasing the overall
latency and energy consumption. The same usually applies for the last hops of
MA itineraries suggested by LCF (which has the smaller total itinerary length).
A first set of simulation experiments compares the performance of LCF, GCF,
NOID and CBID algorithms in terms of their total itinerary length. As illustrated
in Fig. 6(a) (drawn on logarithmic scale), CBID and NOID have the smaller
itinerary length, followed by LCF. GCF derives far the longer itinerary because
it suggests wireless hops among distant sensor nodes. Fig. 6(b) shows that 𝑑/𝑠
ratio appears to have no effect in the total CBID itinerary length (the two graph
lines corresponding to CBID coincide), in contrast to NOID wherein as 𝑑/𝑠
ratio increases, the total length of NOID itineraries increases remarkably (larger
number of MAs cooperate in the data fusion task). The number of itineraries
derived by CBID depends on the parameter 𝑎 and the sink’s transmission range
(Fig. 6(c)). Finally Fig. 6(d) illustrates the total length of the longer suggested
itinerary of NOID and CBID in simulated WSNs with variable number of sensors.
Fig. 7(a) (drawn on logarithmic scale) compares LCF, GCF, NOID and CBID
algorithm in terms of their respective overall data fusion cost. GCF is shown to
result in the higher overall cost, followed by LCF. NOID performs better than
LCF and GCF, while CBID is shown to provide significantly lower data fusion
cost than NOID as: (a) agent itineraries are designed paying ‘respect’ to the
tree structures (i.e. MAs migrations follow the tree edges, unlike NOID which
designs similar tree structures but then constructs agent routes that correspond
to a post-order traversal of these trees), (b) NOID fails to exploit the cloning
capability of MAs; on the contrary, CBID enables agent cloning whenever this
can reduce the fusion cost.
In Fig. 7(b) we compare NOID and CBID for 𝑑 = 200 and 𝑑 = 500 for
networks up to 600 sensors. As 𝑑 and the number of sensors increase, the cost
output difference increases in favor of CBID. Fig. 7(c) verifies that for a given
network size the cost benefit of CBID over NOID increases drastically with 𝑑/𝑠
ratio. As 𝑑 increases the output cost of CBID increases in a slower rate, mainly
due to the cloning feature of MAs exploited by CBID.
Finally, Fig. 7(d) compares the total cost output of CBID and NOID with
variable number of nodes within the PE’s range (we set 𝑎 = 1 because NOID
does not support the a parameter) from 20% to 100% (in the latter case, all
sensor nodes are located within the area). Interestingly, CBID shows an increase
in cost output as the percentage of SNs within its range increases, since the
 (a) (b)

(c) (d)

Fig. 5. Delphi-based simulation of MA-based distributed data fusion algorithms: (a)

LCF output (total itinerary length: 3079 m, overall cost: 390,600 units, execution time:
770940.42 𝜇s); (b) GCF output (total itinerary length: 8628 m, overall cost: 1,116,786
units, execution time: 784021.74 𝜇s); (c) the trees constructed by NOID (four trees,
each assigned to an individual MA; NOID output, where the four trees created on the
previous step are traversed in post-order (total itinerary length: 2676 m, overall cost:
445,080 units, execution time: 3597592.61 𝜇s). (d) the trees constructed by CBID (six
trees, each assigned to an individual MA; CBID output, where the six trees created
on the previous step are traversed in post-order (total itinerary length: 2947 m, overall
cost: 600,968 units, execution time: 798335.74 𝜇s)
 (a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

Fig. 6. Delphi-based simulation of MA-based distributed data fusion algorithms: (a)

Total itinerary length of LCF, GCF, NOID and CBID; (b) Total itinerary length of
NOID and CBID (𝑑 = 1 and 𝑑 = 1000); (c) number of itineraries suggested by CBID
with parameter 𝑎 values (0.2-1), BS range=100m, #sensors=100; (d) Max suggested
itinerary length of NOID and CBID 𝑠 = 1000 bytes, 𝑑 = 200, 𝑎 = 1 (for CBID)
number of derived itineraries increases proportionally. In contrast the output
cost of NOID practically remains unaffected since this variable does not affect
its output.
A last set of experiments evaluates the overall response time of LCF, GCF,
NOID and CBID algorithms for completing data fusion tasks. Response time is
calculated as the sum of MAs instantiation delay, processing delay, MAs trans-
mission delay and propagation delay:

𝑡𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑙𝑙 = 𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑠𝑡 + 𝑡𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑐 + 𝑡𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑠 + 𝑡𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑝 (5)

The MAs instantiation delay is related to the number of MAs involved in
the data fusion task (in our experiments we assume 10 msec to instantiate each
MA object). Hence, it is constant for LCF and GCF algorithms that always
instantiate a single MA that visits the whole set of SNs, while for NOID it
depends on the network scale and the 𝑑/𝑠 ratio which dictate the number of
proposed itineraries. In CBID it also depends on the network scale taking into
account parameter 𝑎 (see Figure 6(c)) and the communication range of the PE.
Processing delay (time needed for the MA to complete its data fusion task on
each sensor) is constant (assumed 50 msec in our tests). Transmission delay
depends on the network transfer rate and the current size of the MA (i.e. the
MA’s code size plus the amount of data accumulated within the MA’s state).
Finally, propagation delay depends on the physical distance covered in successive
MA migrations (i.e. on the overall itinerary length).
Response time measurements are depicted in Figure 8(a) and Figure 8(b).
In both graphs, the response times of LCF and GCF almost coincide: LCF only
involves slightly decreased propagation delay compared to GCF since it derives
shorter itinerary lengths (see Figure 6(a)). It is demonstrated that as the 𝑑/𝑠
ratio and the number of nodes increases (see Figure 8(b)) the response time gain
of NOID and CBID over LCF and GCF increases drastically as the transmission
time dominates (for LCF and GCF) over the other delay parameters. That is,
although NOID and CBID dispatches a large number of MAs thereby increasing
the instantiation delay, these MAs work in parallel, while each of them visits a
small set of sensors (unlike LCF and GCF where a single MA performs a number
of hops equal to the number of sensors). Hence, in NOID and CBID, by the end
of their itinerary MAs have not collected large chunks of data, considerably
decreasing the associated transmission delay. Interestingly, CBID is shown to
outperform NOID, mostly because of the more balanced itinerary length that it
suggests (it creates itineraries with nearly the same number of hops). Also the
suggested max itinerary length of CBID is smaller than NOID (see Figure 6(d)).

6 Conclusion
In this article we presented CBID, an efficient heuristic algorithm that derives
near-optimal itineraries for MAs performing incremental data fusion in WSN
environments.
Our simulation tests indicate that CBID:
 (a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

Fig. 7. Comparison of LCF, GCF, NOID and CBID in data fusion cost for (a) 𝑠 = 1000
bytes, 𝑑 = 200 bytes; (b) comparison of CBID, NOID 𝑠 = 1000 bytes; (c) 𝑠 = 1000
bytes, network size of 200 SNs; (d) 𝑠 = 1000 bytes, 𝑑 = 200 bytes, 20-100% of overall
number of nodes in 𝑎 × 𝑟𝑚𝑎𝑥 area
 (a)

(b)

Fig. 8. Comparison of LCF, GCF, NOID and CBID algorithms in terms of the overall
response time for (a) 𝑑 = 200 bytes, 𝑠 = 1000 bytes, (b) 𝑑 = 500 bytes, 𝑠 = 1000 bytes.

– achieves lower data fusion cost (thus lower energy consumption for the nodes)
and smaller response time, compared to alternative approaches.
– represents a low-complexity algorithmic approach, i.e. it involves a construc-
tion of tree structures much faster than NOID.
– in case(s) of possible topology change(s) in a WSN is able to update the
itineraries followed by the MAs very fast.

However, the above-mentioned advantages are offered at the expense of more

complex manageability of the data fusion task due to the involvement of multiple
slave MAs. That is, an effective inter-agent communication protocol should be
devised to allow exchange of data among the individual clones (e.g. through a
‘message’ board abstraction). In addition, the creation of multiple MA clones
increases the requirement upon SN resources.
As a future work, we intend to implement CBID in real WSN environments
and evaluate its performance in various applications. A set of sensor nodes
(Sunspots) capable of hosting and providing an execution environment for MAs
programmed in Java [45] will form the basis of our field trials.
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