A middleware framework for market-based actuator coordination in sensor and actuator networks

Abstract

Sensor and actuator networks (SANETs) are a growing class of distributed systems combining sensors for environmental monitoring with actuators for reacting to environmental changes and controlling its dynamic processes. As SANETs evolve to accommodate complex large-scale deployments, there is an increasing probability that sensors' and actuators' attempted tasks may impact those of other sensors and actuators; for example by collectively exceeding the amount of available resources. Hence, there is a need for new tools that can autonomously coordinate the execution of SANETs for the benefit of the entire system. This need is especially important in case of actuators since they actually affect the environment. This paper advocates the use of market-based methods as the basis for distributed actuator coordination within the Sentire SANET framework. We demonstrate that auction-based distributed actuator coordination in an HVAC system leads to efficient, temporal and fair allocation of energy even when the desired temperature cannot be sustained in all locations simultaneously. We also discuss how this approach can be generalized to similar SANET resource allocation problems and what other challenges auction mechanism design faces when applied to SANETs. Copyright 2008 ACM.