Distributed Integer Balancing under Weight Constraints in the Presence of Transmission Delays and Packet Drops

We consider the distributed weight balancing problem in networks of nodes that are interconnected via directed edges, each of which is able to admit a positive integer weight within a certain interval, captured by individual lower and upper limits. A digraph with positive integer weights on its (directed) edges is weight-balanced if, for each node, the sum of the weights of the incoming edges equals the sum of the weights of the outgoing edges. In this work, we develop a distributed iterative algorithm which solves the integer weight balancing problem in the presence of arbitrary (time-varying and inhomogeneous) time delays that might affect transmissions at particular links. We assume that communication between neighboring nodes is bidirectional, but unreliable since it may be affected from bounded or unbounded delays (packet drops), independently between different links and link directions. We show that, even when communication links are affected from bounded delays or occasional packet drops (but not permanent communication link failures), the proposed distributed algorithm allows the nodes to converge to a set of weight values that solves the integer weight balancing problem, after a finite number of iterations with probability one, as long as the necessary and sufficient circulation conditions on the lower and upper edge weight limits are satisfied. Finally, we provide examples to illustrate the operation and performance of the proposed algorithms

Distributed Weight Balancing in Directed Topologies

This doctoral thesis concerns novel distributed algorithms for weight balancing over directed (communication) topologies. A directed topology (digraph) with nonnegative (or positive) weights assigned on each edge is weight-balanced if, for each node, the sum of the weights of in-coming edges equals the sum of the weights of out-going edges. The novel algorithms introduced in this thesis can facilitate the development of strategies for generating weight balanced digraphs, in a distributed manner, and find numerous applications in coordination and control of multi-component systems. In the first part of this thesis, we introduce a novel distributed algorithm that operates over a static topology and solves the weight balancing problem when the weights are restricted to be nonnegative integers. In the second part of the thesis, we present a novel distributed algorithm which solves the integer weight balancing problem in the presence of arbitrary (time-varying and inhomogeneous) delays that might affect the transmission at a particular link at a particular time. In the third part of this thesis, we present a novel distributed algorithm for obtaining admissible and balanced integer weights for the case when there are lower and upper weight constraints on the communication links. In the fourth part of this thesis we present a novel distributed algorithm which solves the integer weight balancing problem under lower and upper weight constraints over the communication links for the case where arbitrary (time-varying and inhomogeneous) time delays and possible packet drops affect the transmission at a particular link at a particular time.Comment: doctoral thesi