1. Deterministic Network Exploration by Anonymous Silent Agents with Local Traffic Reports
- Author
-
Andrzej Pelc, Yoann Dieudonné, Modélisation, Information et Systèmes - UR UPJV 4290 (MIS), Université de Picardie Jules Verne (UPJV), Département d'Informatique et d'Ingénierie (DII), Université du Québec en Outaouais (UQO), Laboratoire de Recherche en Informatique d'Amiens (LaRIA), Université de Picardie Jules Verne (UPJV)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Czumaj, Artur and Mehlhorn, Kurt and Pitts, Andrew and Wattenhofer, and Roger
- Subjects
Polynomial ,Normalization property ,Deterministic algorithm ,Computer science ,Distributed computing ,[INFO.INFO-DS]Computer Science [cs]/Data Structures and Algorithms [cs.DS] ,0102 computer and information sciences ,02 engineering and technology ,deterministic algorithm ,Exploration problem ,exploration ,01 natural sciences ,Mathematics (miscellaneous) ,Weak model ,0202 electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering ,Time complexity ,ComputingMilieux_MISCELLANEOUS ,020203 distributed computing ,business.industry ,Node (networking) ,graph ,Graph ,Network exploration ,010201 computation theory & mathematics ,[INFO.INFO-MA]Computer Science [cs]/Multiagent Systems [cs.MA] ,network ,Graph (abstract data type) ,anonymous mobile agent ,business ,Computer network - Abstract
A team consisting of an unknown number of mobile agents starting from different nodes of an unknown network, possibly at different times, have to explore the network: Every node must be visited by at least one agent, and all agents must eventually stop. Agents are anonymous (identical), execute the same deterministic algorithm, and move in synchronous rounds along links of the network. They are silent: They cannot send any messages to other agents or mark visited nodes in any way. In the absence of any additional information, exploration with termination of an arbitrary network in this model, devoid of any means of communication between agents, is impossible. Our aim is to solve the exploration problem by giving to agents very restricted local traffic reports . Specifically, an agent that is at a node v in a given round is provided with three bits of information answering the following questions: Am I alone at v ? Did any agent enter v in this round? Did any agent exit v in this round? We show that this small amount of information permits us to solve the exploration problem in arbitrary networks. More precisely, we give a deterministic terminating exploration algorithm working in arbitrary networks for all initial configurations that are not perfectly symmetric ; that is, in which there are agents with different views of the network. The algorithm works in polynomial time in the (unknown) size of the network. A deterministic terminating exploration algorithm working for all initial configurations in arbitrary networks does not exist.
- Published
- 2014
- Full Text
- View/download PDF