2009 International Conference on Communications and Mobile Computing

A New Mobile Spatial Information Service Grid Computing Model Based on Mobile Agent
TIAN Gena* , LI jin-fangb (a.Department of Geo-informatics, Henan Polytechnic University, Jiaozuo Henan 454003, China; b.Faculty of Electro-mechanical Engineering, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou Guangdong 510090) Abstract
A new mobile computing model of spatial information service is studied based on grid computing environment. Key technologies are presented in the model, including mobile agent (MA) mobile computing, grid computing, location based service (LBS) ,global positioning system (GPS), and wireless communication technologies, such as, general packet radio service (GPRS), transfer control protocol/internet protocol (TCP/IP), and user datagram protocol (UDP). In order to deal with the narrow bandwidth and instability of the wireless internet, distributed organization of tremendous spatial data, limited processing speed and low memory of mobile devices, a new mobile agent based computing model of mobile spatial information service grid (MSISG) is further proposed that has good load balance, high processing efficiency, less network communication and thus suitable for mobile computing environment. A field test is carried out through this model, and the results show that the proposed model is adaptable for mobile spatial information service. as mobility, intelligence and self-governed and so on, and thus brings chance to mobile spatial information service on wireless internet. While spatial information is faced with four obstacles[4], and is produced and distributed in different departments and thus leads to information islands[1]. The spatial information character, such as non-structure, complex relations, large quantity, multi-resolution and region distributed, it leads to big problem of mobile spatial information service[2]. Grid computing technology brings opportunity to geographic information science. Grid computing technology connects all kinds of information resource and thus applies information resource more efficient than current network. Grid term original refer grid computing, it realizes super-computing capability by congregating geographic distributing computing resource and thus builds huge global computing architecture[5-6]. In view of the advantages of MA mobile computing and grid computing technology, a new idea is proposed by integrating MA and Grid methodology, which integrates spatial information gathering, processing, modeling, and mobile service into a real-time dynamic abstract MSISG organization. Therefore, this paper is emphases on grid computing and MA integrated application in MSISG. Since smaller memory and storage, lower CPU speed and smaller display screen, the data models used in desktop and workstation GIS are not suitable for mobile devices. So another point in this paper is focused on the MA dispatch and moving rules between the desktop wire internet and the mobile device wireless internet environment, make the best of efficient moving rules arithmetic to make up the deficiency of hardware platform, and realize the fast transferring of spatial MA.

1. Introduction
Geographic information system (GIS) has become Geoinformatics and GIS service from a kind of technology. GIS has walk up to WEGGIS, Mobile GIS and Grid GIS[1,4]. As an important part of Grid GIS, MSISG can supply spatial information service for public anywhere and anytime, thus becomes part of peoples daily life[2]. However, the inherent characteristics of wireless communication, such as low bandwidth and frequent disconnections and so on, become the bottleneck problem of mobile spatial information service[3].So many mobile GIS application are still in laboratory for long time. As a new mobile computing technology, MA has the characteristics such

2. Mobile Computing Model of MSISG

* Supported By National Natural Science Founds of China (Number: 40701139) and Doctor Found of Henan Polytechnic University (Number: B2008-38).

978-0-7695-3501-2/09 $25.00 2009 IEEE DOI 10.1109/CMC.2009.14

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The mobile computing model of MSISG has 4 modules: mobile GIS client, MA, MA server node, and MSISG computing node, as show in Figure 1. The abstract MSISG organization is composed of MSISG MA server node and MSISG computing node in logical. The basic MSISG MA server node is MSISG computing node. According to the multi-scale and distributed characters, MSISG nodes are defined as different levels. The same scale MSISG nodes are composed of the same level MSISG nodes which distributed in geography. The same level MSISG nodes dont lap over each other in geographic region. According to the levels and region distributed characters, the whole MSISG nodes which subject to the same super MSISG node make up of their super MSISG node in geography region. In the integrative MSISG organization, the Mobile GIS Client dispatches spatial MA objects which take special task to the MSISG MA server Node[2]. The spatial MA objects transfer among the MSISG nodes by the internet/intranet. The first level MSISG MA node receive task request MA, and then dispatch the task MA to the subordinate MSISG MA nodes, the subordinate MSISG MA nodes dispatch the task MA to their subordinate MGSISG MA nodes. This will be a recursion until the task MA is finished. The subordinate MSISG MA nodes cooperate with each other and finish the task which their super nodes dispatch. The task detail is finished by MSISG

computing node which composed of several computer servers. Following the moving rules and independence of the system which create it, the spatial MA moves from one MSISG node to another MSISG node in the internet and MA running environment. Taking its self status and running codes, moving spatial MA transfer to another target environment and restart in the local environment. Mobile devices client neednt keeping internet connection when MA ramble in internet[3]. The spatial MA can finish its task by itself. Mobile devices client can reconnect internet, call back the MA and obtain the service results[2]. The mobile computing model of MSISG is based on MVC (Model-View-Controller). The Model is the spatial MA and MSISG computing node. The Model implements the task business logical function in detail. The View is the mobile GIS client which behaves the display of spatial information and operation of mobile GIS client. The Controller is MSISG MA server nodes which dont deal with practical business model. The Controller only controls the business logic, it receive task request MA from the View, and then transmit the task request MA to the Model. The Models cooperate with the transferring MA and finish the task took by the spatial MA. The Controller returns the results disposed by the Model to the View. So the computing of special task is moved from the view to the model and transfer among the MSISG nodes. The spatial MA is the agent of the computing of special task. Therefore,

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the computing mode of MSISG is mobile computing mode.

3. Key technologies of MSISG

3.1. MSISG MA model
The MSISG MA is one kind of moveable agents, it extends resolving affair capacity of traditional agents. The MSISG MA has the characters of selfdetermination, moveable, cooperation and intelligence [3,6] . Following the moving rules and independence of the system which create it, MA transfer among the MSISG nodes in the internet running environment. When the mobile device clients dispatch the MSISG MA which carried with special computing task, the mobile device neednt keeping internet connection. The MSISG MA can finish its task by itself. Mobile devices client can reconnect internet, call back the MSISG MA and obtain the service results[2,3]. The aim of MA is moving computing capacity to data, not moving data to computing capacity[3]. The computing is moved near the data source, so the network communication and the computing time are reduced. This model has the following advantages: (1) The mobile devices are smaller memory and storage, lower CPU speed and smaller display screen, but spatial information is huge, and spatial computing is complex, so storing huge spatial information on mobile devices is unpractical, and implement complex spatial computing on mobile devices is also unpractical. Therefore storing huge spatial information on desktop computer and moving spatial computing from mobile devices to desktop computer are advisable. (2) Carried with the special task, the MSISG MA transfer among the MSISG nodes, so the storing spatial information and spatial computing task can be distributed deploy on different MSISG nodes. Therefore, load of every MSISG node will be reduced. (3) Because of the moveable character of MSISG MA, the spatial computing task can be moved to each MSISG node, so the MSISG nodes and MA can be cooperated with each other to finish the terminal goal.

device, and the Visual C++ is used on desktop computer. The move technology is serialize and unserialize. The data and code of MSISG MA is saved in one MSISG node environment, and then the serialized data is transmitted to other MSISG node environment. The serialized data is instanced to the MSISG MA. So the MSISG MA revives in the other MSISG node environment. This process is the basic transfer principle of MSISG MA.

Following this implement principle, the MSISG MA can transfer on different route. So the moving rules are important to the transfer efficient of MSISG MA. At present, there are three transfer mechanism of MGISG MA, as show in Figure 3.

3.2. Transfer Mechanism of MSISG MA

How to transfer among the MSISG nodes is the spatial MA faced with. The spatial MA not only need to transfer between mobile device environment and desktop platform environment, but also need to transfer between the wireless network environment which is instability and the wire network which is stability[2]. The moving mechanism of MSISG MA is as shown in Figure 2. The eMbedded Visual c++ is used on mobile

The first mechanism is MA server batch dispatch model, as show in Figure 3(a). In this mechanism, MSISG mobile client dispatch the MSISG MA to MA server. Then the transfer route is as following: (1) The MSISG MA server clone many spatial MA, and then batch dispatch these spatial MA to each of the MSISG computing nodes. These MAs run on parallel many MSISG computing nodes to do their tasks. While one MA finishes its task, the MSISG computing node returns the MA to the MSISG MA server. (2) The MSISG MA server receives the returning MA. If the returning MA has no running results, it will be killed and the resource occupied by the MA will be released. When all spatial MA return, the MSISG MA server integrates all the results returned by the spatial MA to one spatial MA and returns the MA to the MSISG client. The other spatial MA will be killed. (3) If all the spatial MAs have only one result, when the MSISG MA server receives the results return by the spatial MA, the results will return to the MSISG

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client immediately, and the other spatial MAs will be killed. The second method is MA transfer freedom model, as show in Fig 23(b).The transfer route is as following: (1) When the MSISG MA server receives the request spatial MA, it dispatches the request MA to one MSISG computing node. The request MA does its task on the MSISG computing node. (2) When the request MA finds the results on the first MSISG computing node, if the result is really on one MSISG computing node, the result MA return to the MSISG MA server and then return to the MSISG mobile Client. (3) If the spatial MA is uncertainly one result, or there are no results on first MSISG computing node, then the spatial MA move to the other MSISG server by itself. Until all the results are found, the result MA object returns to the MSISG MA server and client. The third method is agent server transmit model, as show in Figure 3(c). The transfer route is as following: (1) When the MSISG MA server receives the request spatial MA, the spatial MA will be cloned and dispatched to one MSISG computing node. The cloned spatial MA runs on the MSISG computing node. (2) When the spatial MA finishes its task, it returns to the MSISG MA server. If the returning MA has result and the request result is only one result, the MA will return to the MSISG mobile client immediately. (3) If the returning spatial MA has no result, the MSISG MA server dispatches the MA to another MSISG computing nodes. If the spatial MA has result, but there will have other results on other MSISG computing nodes, the cloned MA will give its temporary result to the original MA and be dispatched to other MSISG node by the MSISG MA server. (4) It will be a recurrence until the MSISG MA server receives one result MA or receives all results MA. The MSISG MA server integrates the results returned by the MA and returns the integrated result to the MSISG Client. All the cloned MAs will be killed. According to the MSISG node load status, the MSISG MA server model dispatches spatial MA to the MSISG computing nodes in reason. According to practical experiment, the third MA transfer mechanism is the best approach among the three mechanisms.

connection different of the MSISG MA agent server and the MSISG computing node, the distributed cooperation method is different, as shown in Fig 4.

3.3. Cooperation mechanism of MSISG MA

The advantage of Grid computing is realizes supercomputing capability by congregating geographic distributing computing resource[2,5]. How to cooperation with each other of these computing resource is important to efficient application. One MSISG MA server node is in charge of server MSISG computing nodes. According to the logic

One cooperation mechanism is MSISG server cooperation, as shown in Fig 4(a). The MSISG computing nodes connect with the MSISG MA server, and they also connect with and register each other. The business logic is as following: (1) MSISG MA server receive request from MSISG client, it response and return check code and the internet address of the MSISG computing node which the MSISG client GPS locates by UDP agent. (2) The MSISG client receives the check code and the internet addresses, it creates TCP connection with the MSISG computing node by TCP Agent. The MSISG client dispatch spatial MA to request LBS service of MSISG. (3) The MSISG computing node which the MSISG client GPS locates manages the MSISG client. It receives MA dispatched from the MSISG client and cooperates with the MA. When the MA finished its task, the MSISG computing node returns it to the MSISG mobile client. The second cooperation method is MSISG MA server control, as shown in Fig.4 (b). Every MSISG computing node registers on the MSISG MA server and create TCP connection with it. While every MSISG computing node does not connect with each other. All the MSISG computing node cooperation is controlled by the MSISG MA server. The MSISG client logon the MSISG MA server and create TCP connection. The MSISG MA server receives MA dispatched from the MSISG client, and dispatches MA to the MSISG computing node by the resource and load of the MSISG computing node. So several MSISG computing node cooperates with each other and serve for the MSISG client. In addition, the cooperation communication method between MSISG MA server and MSISG computing node is also different. One method is inquire method of MSISG MA server, the other is the MSISG computing node send report to MSISG MA server by itself.

4. A field test of MSISG

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Taking the mobile computing model of MSISG, a field test is carried out in Shanghai. Based on MVC program model, the 4 modules of MSISG are developed by visual c++ and eMbedded visual c++. The mobile client device hardware is one mobile phone integrated with GPS, PDA and GPRS wireless communication. The MSISG MA server and MSISG computing node hardware is IBM T42 notebook. For no stable IP address, dynamic domain name parse technology is adopted. The mobile communication between mobile GIS client and MSISG MA server is GPRS wireless communication. As one child Grid of National MSISG, Shanghai MSISG is deployed as follow. Shanghai MSISG MA server will be deployed on one computer connected with internet. Only index spatial information is deployed on MSISG MA server. Spatial information of each district will be deployed on different MSISG computing nodes connected with internet. Figure 5 is the interface of MSISG field test of request least path and spatial information covered with the least path. The MSISG computing node logon the MSISG agent server and starts up MSISG Grid service. The MSISG computing node can be create MSISG Grid index service, independent monitor service and least past computing service, and so on.

(1) The MSISG mobile client logon on MSISG MA server by GPRS wireless internet. Then the mobile GIS client dispatches MA to the MSISG MA server. (2) The MSISG MA server dispatches the spatial MA to the MSISG computing nodes. (3) The spatial MA run on MSISG computing nodes to finish its task. The mobile GIS client request least path, as shown in Fig.6. The mobile GIS client request local spatial information, as shown in Fig.7. The Mobile GIS client request spatial information which the least path covers as show in Fig.8.

5. Conclusions
As an important part of Grid GIS, MSISG can supply spatial information service for public anywhere and anytime, thus becomes part of peoples daily life. This paper proposed a new mobile computing model of MSISG based on grid computing environment. Several key technologies are researched in this model, including MA, grid, LBS, GPS, GPRS, TCP/IP and UDP. The theories and technologies architecture of MSISG are built originally from the base. A field test is carried out through this model in Shanghai, and the results show that the proposed models are adaptable for mobile spatial information service. At the same time, the test of MSISG shows GIS will be integrated with advanced technologies of other domain, and will be applied in our daily life in practical.

6. References
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