Moshe Kam

Designing dependable agent systems for mobile wireless networks

A mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a wireless network of mobile devices-such as PDAs, laptops, cell phones, and other lightweight, easily transportable computing devices-in which each node can act as a router for network traffic rather than relying on fixed networking infrastructure. As mobile computing becomes ubiquitous, MANETS becomes increasingly important. As a design paradigm, multiagent systems (MASs) can help facilitate and coordinate ad hoc-scenarios that might include security personnel, rescue workers, police officers, firefighters, and paramedics. On this network, mobile agents perform critical functions that include delivering messages, monitoring resource usage on constrained mobile devices, assessing network traffic patterns, analyzing host behaviors, and revoking access rights for suspicious hosts and agents. Agents can effectively operate in such environments if they are environment aware - if they can sense and reason about their complex and dynamic environments. Altogether, agents living on a MANET must be network, information, and performance aware. This article fleshes out how we apply this approach to populations of mobile agents on a live MANET.

Service-based computing on manets: enabling dynamic interoperability of first responders

Mobile ad hoc networks will form a critical part of the first-responder communications infrastructure. Empirical data shows how network-aware, autonomous, mobile agents can manage information services on live manet environments. A multidisciplinary team in Drexel Universitys College of Engineering has been working with local law enforcement and transportation officials to identify problems in enabling police, fire, security, and other public protectors to effectively communicate and collaborate in first-response situations. Development of the Philadelphia Area Urban Wireless Network Testbed (PA-UWNT) is part of this effort. The PA-UWNT is a mobile ad hoc network (manet) comprising mobile computers (PDAs, tablets, and laptops) and Web service-based applications. Our experience in the PA-UWNT project indicates that constructing such systems will require new research developments in computer networking, agent and service-based computing, and security that integrate each of these disciplines at several fundamental levels. In this paper, we outline part of this approach through experiments demonstrating the utility of integrating the network and agent layers and enabling agents to reason about the current operating context. We posit that autonomous agents that can reason about the networks slate and services offer an effective means of meeting the manet environments challenges.

Service-based computing for agents on disruption and delay prone networks

As computing and communication hardware becomes smaller and more powerful, computer networking is being applied to a wide array of problems and settings. The ubiquity of wireless Internet access in urban society is just one symptom of this advance. However, in many domains the nature of the network is significantly unlike that of traditional wired networking. Common assumptions regarding properties such as delay, connectivity models, and hosts often do not hold, posing many new challenges to be addressed. Two archetypical settings highlighting these are Interplanetary Internet and mobile ad-hoc networks. The network layer alone cannot resolve many of these issues---it is not possible to completely shield the application layer from factors such as long delays and frequent disconnects. Agents in these settings cannot behave as they would on a wired network and achieve similar performance. Developing effective agent-based systems for these environments therefore requires new approaches, techniques, and agent behaviors to account for these constraints.

Self-Adaptive Dissemination of Data in Dynamic Sensor Networks

The distribution of data in large dynamic wireless sensor networks presents a difficult problem due to node mobility, link failures, and traffic congestion. In this paper, we propose a framework for adaptive flooding protocols suitable for disseminating data in large-scale dynamic networks without a central controlling entity. The framework consists of cooperating mobile agents and a reinforcement learning component with function approximation and state generalization. A component for agent coordination is provided, as well as rules for agent replication, mutation, and annihilation. We examine the adaptability of this framework to a data dissemination problem in a simulation experiment.

Demonstration of the Secure Wireless Agent Testbed (SWAT)

We will demonstrate the Secure Wireless Agent Testbed (SWAT), a unique facility developed at Drexel University to study integration, networking and information assurance for next-generation wireless mobile agent systems. SWAT is an implemented system that fully integrates: (1) mobile agents, (2) wireless ad hoc multi-hop networks, and (3) security. The demonstration will show the functionality of a number of decentralized agent-based applications, including applications for authentication, collaboration, messaging, and remote sensor monitoring. The demonstration will take place on a live mobile ad hoc network consisting of approximately a dozen nodes (PDAs, tablet PCs, and laptops) and hundreds of mobile software agents.