System and method for persisting mobile agents within a mobile region of interest
View Patent ↗Mobile agents can be deployed to mobile devices within specific regions of interest to achieve specific goals in respect of events occurring in the region of interest. In order to ensure that the agent can persist within the region of interest until the agent goals are achieved, the agent is configured to locate other devices within the region of interest and to propagate itself, by moving or copying itself, to those other devices. The region of interest may be a mobile and/or dynamic region of interest defined by, for example, a proximity to one or more mobile wireless access points or by an overlapping peer-to-peer communication range of a plurality of mobile devices that are configured to support the agent.
1. A method for deploying an agent to a mobile population of devices comprising:
deploying an agent to a first mobile device;
executing the agent in a first mobile region of interest on the first mobile device;
replicating the agent on at least one second mobile device within the mobile region of interest;
executing the agent in a second mobile region of interest on the at least one second mobile device; and
merging a definition of the first mobile region of interest with a definition of the second mobile region of interest when a mobile device of the first mobile region of interest comes within a peer-to-peer communication range of a mobile device of the second mobile region of interest.
2. The method of claim 1 wherein replicating the agent comprises copying the agent from the first mobile device to the at least one second mobile device.
3. The method of claim 1 wherein replicating the agent comprises deploying the agent from a deployment point to the at least one second mobile device.
4. The method of claim 1 comprising joining one or more further mobile devices to the mobile population of devices when the one or more further mobile devices come within a peer-to-peer communication range of at least one mobile device within the mobile region of interest.
5. The method of claim 1 comprising removing a mobile device from the mobile region of interest when the mobile device is unable to communicate peer-to-peer with at least one mobile device within the mobile region of interest.
6. The method of claim 5 comprising defining a second mobile region of interest comprising the removed mobile device.
7. The method of claim 1 wherein the definition of the mobile region of interest comprises a membership list of mobile devices.
8. The method of claim 1 comprising updating the definition of the mobile region of interest.
9. The method of claim 8 wherein updating the definition of the mobile region of interest comprises:
determining which mobile devices are in a communication range of each other; and
removing from the definition of the mobile region of interest any mobile devices that are not in communication range.
10. A mobile device executing an agent application on at least one processor of the mobile device, the agent application configured to:
engage in peer-to-peer communication with a second mobile device;
determine whether the second mobile device is within a mobile region of interest;
replicate the agent application to the second mobile device if the second mobile device is within the mobile region of interest;
merge the mobile region of interest associated with the mobile device and with the second mobile device;
merge a definition of the mobile region of interest associated with the mobile device and with the second mobile device;
determine which mobile devices from the merged definition of the mobile region of interest are in communication range of each other; and
remove from the merged definition of the mobile region of interest any mobile devices of the definition that are not in communication range.
11. The mobile device of claim 10 wherein the agent application is configured to determine whether the mobile device and the second mobile device are members of a same mesh network.
12. The mobile device of claim 10 wherein the agent application is configured to:
remove the mobile device from a definition of the mobile region of interest when the mobile device moves out of the mobile region of interest; and
initiate a second mobile region of interest incorporating the mobile device.
13. A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising computer-executable instructions for execution by at least one processor of a first mobile device, that, when executed, cause the at least one processor to:
execute an agent application;
define a mobile region of interest incorporating a communication range of the first mobile device;
engage in peer-to-peer communication with a second mobile device;
replicate the agent application to the second mobile device;
expand the definition of the mobile region of interest to incorporate the second mobile device;
detect a second mobile region of interest incorporating a plurality of mobile devices;
merge a definition of the second mobile region of interest with the definition of the first mobile region of interest; and
periodically update the definition of the mobile region of interest to remove any mobile devices that are not within a communication range of at least one mobile device within the mobile region of interest.