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A Context-Aware Task Distribution Approach for Wireless Sensor Actor Networks
Hossein Momeni and Mohsen Sharifi

Wireless Sensor Actor Networks (WSANs) have contributed to the advancement of ubiquitous computing wherein time and energy considerations to perform the tasks of ubiquitous applications are critical. Therefore, real-timeliness and energy-awareness are amongst the grand challenges of WSANs. In this paper, we present a context-aware task distribution approach for assigning real-time tasks to cost-effective actors and for scheduling these tasks at actor level subject to minimizing the energy consumptions of actors and meeting the deadlines of tasks. The proposed approach comprises of three protocols, namely a Market-based Task Assignment Protocol (MaTAP), an Energy Calculation Protocol (ECaP), and a Context-aware Task Scheduling Protocol (CaTSP). We present the formal models of the proposed protocols using Timed Automata and prove their soundness to validate the correctness of the proposed approach.

We show that our proposed approach is more efficient in terms of both the total remaining energies of actors and the average tasks completion time compared to stochastic approach. We also show that our approach guarantees the deadlines of all tasks.

Keywords: Wireless sensor actor networks, task, scheduling, deadline, context, auction, bid, energy.

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