57 research outputs found
Byzantine Gathering in Polynomial Time
Gathering a group of mobile agents is a fundamental task in the field of distributed and mobile systems. This can be made drastically more difficult to achieve when some agents are subject to faults, especially the Byzantine ones that are known as being the worst faults to handle. In this paper we study, from a deterministic point of view, the task of Byzantine gathering in a network modeled as a graph. In other words, despite the presence of Byzantine agents, all the other (good) agents, starting from {possibly} different nodes and applying the same deterministic algorithm, have to meet at the same node in finite time and stop moving. An adversary chooses the initial nodes of the agents (the number of agents may be larger than the number of nodes) and assigns a different positive integer (called label) to each of them. Initially, each agent knows its label. The agents move in synchronous rounds and can communicate with each other only when located at the same node. Within the team, f of the agents are Byzantine. A Byzantine agent acts in an unpredictable and arbitrary way. For example, it can choose an arbitrary port when it moves, can convey arbitrary information to other agents and can change its label in every round, in particular by forging the label of another agent or by creating a completely new one.
Besides its label, which corresponds to a local knowledge, an agent is assigned some global knowledge denoted by GK that is common to all agents. In literature, the Byzantine gathering problem has been analyzed in arbitrary n-node graphs by considering the scenario when GK=(n,f) and the scenario when GK=f. In the first (resp. second) scenario, it has been shown that the minimum number of good agents guaranteeing deterministic gathering of all of them is f+1 (resp. f+2). However, for both these scenarios, all the existing deterministic algorithms, whether or not they are optimal in terms of required number of good agents, have the major disadvantage of having a time complexity that is exponential in n and L, where L is the value of the largest label belonging to a good agent. In this paper, we seek to design a deterministic solution for Byzantine gathering that makes a concession on the proportion of Byzantine agents within the team, but that offers a significantly lower complexity. We also seek to use a global knowledge whose the length of the binary representation (that we also call size) is small. In this respect, assuming that the agents are in a strong team i.e., a team in which the number of good agents is at least some prescribed value that is quadratic in f, we give positive and negative results. On the positive side, we show an algorithm that solves Byzantine gathering with all strong teams in all graphs of size at most n, for any integers n and f, in a time polynomial in n and the length |l_{min}| of the binary representation of the smallest label of a good agent. The algorithm works using a global knowledge of size O(log log log n), which is of optimal order of magnitude in our context to reach a time complexity that is polynomial in n and |l_{min}|. Indeed, on the negative side, we show that there is no deterministic algorithm solving Byzantine gathering with all strong teams, in all graphs of size at most n, in a time polynomial in n and |l_{min}| and using a global knowledge of size o(log log log n)
Optimal deterministic ring exploration with oblivious asynchronous robots
We consider the problem of exploring an anonymous unoriented ring of size
by identical, oblivious, asynchronous mobile robots, that are unable to
communicate, yet have the ability to sense their environment and take decisions
based on their local view. Previous works in this weak scenario prove that
must not divide for a deterministic solution to exist. Also, it is known
that the minimum number of robots (either deterministic or probabilistic) to
explore a ring of size is 4. An upper bound of 17 robots holds in the
deterministic case while 4 probabilistic robots are sufficient. In this paper,
we close the complexity gap in the deterministic setting, by proving that no
deterministic exploration is feasible with less than five robots whenever the
size of the ring is even, and that five robots are sufficient for any that
is coprime with five. Our protocol completes exploration in O(n) robot moves,
which is also optimal
Gathering on Rings for Myopic Asynchronous Robots With Lights
We investigate gathering algorithms for asynchronous autonomous mobile robots moving in uniform ring-shaped networks. Different from most work using the Look-Compute-Move (LCM) model, we assume that robots have limited visibility and lights. That is, robots can observe nodes only within a certain fixed distance, and emit a color from a set of constant number of colors. We consider gathering algorithms depending on two parameters related to the initial configuration: M_{init}, which denotes the number of nodes between two border nodes, and O_{init}, which denotes the number of nodes hosting robots between two border nodes. In both cases, a border node is a node hosting one or more robots that cannot see other robots on at least one side. Our main contribution is to prove that, if M_{init} or O_{init} is odd, gathering is always feasible with three or four colors. The proposed algorithms do not require additional assumptions, such as knowledge of the number of robots, multiplicity detection capabilities, or the assumption of towerless initial configurations. These results demonstrate the power of lights to achieve gathering of robots with limited visibility
Byzantine Gathering in Polynomial Time
We study the task of Byzantine gathering in a network modeled as a graph.
Despite the presence of Byzantine agents, all the other (good) agents, starting
from possibly different nodes and applying the same deterministic algorithm,
have to meet at the same node in finite time and stop moving. An adversary
chooses the initial nodes of the agents and assigns a different label to each
of them. The agents move in synchronous rounds and communicate with each other
only when located at the same node. Within the team, f of the agents are
Byzantine. A Byzantine agent acts in an unpredictable way: in particular it may
forge the label of another agent or create a completely new one. Besides its
label, which corresponds to a local knowledge, an agent is assigned some global
knowledge GK that is common to all agents. In literature, the Byzantine
gathering problem has been analyzed in arbitrary n-node graphs by considering
the scenario when GK=(n,f) and the scenario when GK=f. In the first (resp.
second) scenario, it has been shown that the minimum number of good agents
guaranteeing deterministic gathering of all of them is f+1 (resp. f+2). For
both these scenarios, all the existing deterministic algorithms, whether or not
they are optimal in terms of required number of good agents, have a time
complexity that is exponential in n and L, where L is the largest label
belonging to a good agent.
In this paper, we seek to design a deterministic solution for Byzantine
gathering that makes a concession on the proportion of Byzantine agents within
the team, but that offers a significantly lower complexity. We also seek to use
a global knowledge whose the length of the binary representation is small.
Assuming that the agents are in a strong team i.e., a team in which the number
of good agents is at least some prescribed value that is quadratic in f, we
give positive and negative results
Asynchronous Gathering in a Torus
We consider the gathering problem for asynchronous and oblivious robots that cannot communicate explicitly with each other but are endowed with visibility sensors that allow them to see the positions of the other robots.
Most investigations on the gathering problem on the discrete universe are done on ring shaped networks due to the number of symmetric configurations. We extend in this paper the study of the gathering problem on torus shaped networks assuming robots endowed with local weak multiplicity detection. That is, robots cannot make the difference between nodes occupied by only one robot from those occupied by more than one robot unless it is their current node. Consequently, solutions based on creating a single multiplicity node as a landmark for the gathering cannot be used. We present in this paper a deterministic algorithm that solves the gathering problem starting from any rigid configuration on an asymmetric unoriented torus shaped network
Optimal Torus Exploration by Oblivious Robots
International audienceWe consider autonomous robots that are endowed with motion actuators and visibility sensors. The robots we consider are weak, i.e., they are anonymous, uniform, unable to explicitly communicate, and oblivious (they do not remember any of their past actions). In this paper, we propose an optimal (w.r.t. the number of robots) solution for the terminating exploration of a torus-shaped network by a team of such robots. In more details, we first show that it is impossible to explore a simple torus of arbitrary size with (strictly) less than four robots, even if the algorithm is probabilistic. If the algorithm is required to be deterministic, four robots are also insufficient. This negative result implies that the only way to obtain an optimal algorithm (w.r.t. the number of robots participating to the algorithm) is to make use of probabilities. Then, we propose a probabilistic algorithm that uses four robots to explore all simple tori of size , where . Hence, in such tori, four robots are necessary and sufficient to solve the (probabilistic) terminating exploration. As a torus can be seen as a 2-dimensional ring, our result shows, perhaps surprisingly, that increasing the number of possible symmetries in the network (due to increasing dimensions) does not come at an extra cost w.r.t. the number of robots that are necessary to solve the problem
Optimal torus exploration by oblivious robots
International audienceWe deal with a team of autonomous robots that are endowed with motion actuators and visibility sensors. Those robots are weak and evolve in a discrete environment. By weak, we mean that they are anonymous, uniform, unable to explicitly communicate, and oblivious. We first show that it is impossible to solve the terminating exploration of a simple torus of arbitrary size with less than 4 or 5 such robots, respectively depending on whether the algorithm is probabilistic or deterministic. Next, we propose in the SSYNC model a probabilistic solution for the terminating exploration of torus-shaped networks of size ℓ×L, where 7≤ℓ≤L, by a team of 4 such weak robots. So, this algorithm is optimal w.r.t. the number of robots
Ring Exploration with Oblivious Myopic Robots
The exploration problem in the discrete universe, using identical oblivious
asynchronous robots without direct communication, has been well investigated.
These robots have sensors that allow them to see their environment and move
accordingly. However, the previous work on this problem assume that robots have
an unlimited visibility, that is, they can see the position of all the other
robots. In this paper, we consider deterministic exploration in an anonymous,
unoriented ring using asynchronous, oblivious, and myopic robots. By myopic, we
mean that the robots have only a limited visibility. We study the computational
limits imposed by such robots and we show that under some conditions the
exploration problem can still be solved. We study the cases where the robots
visibility is limited to 1, 2, and 3 neighboring nodes, respectively.Comment: (2012
Self-Stabilizing Balancing Algorithm for Containment-Based Trees
Containment-based trees encompass various handy structures such as B+-trees, R-trees and M-trees. They are widely used to build data indexes, range-queryable overlays, publish/subscribe systems both in centralized and distributed contexts. In addition to their versatility, their balanced shape ensures an overall satisfactory performance. Re- cently, it has been shown that their distributed implementations can be fault-resilient. However, this robustness is achieved at the cost of un-balancing the structure. While the structure remains correct in terms of searchability, its performance can be significantly decreased. In this paper, we propose a distributed self-stabilizing algorithm to balance containment-based trees
Explorer un anneau avec des robots amnésiques et myopes
International audienceNous nous intéressons au problème de l'exploration d'un anneau avec arrêt avec k robots mobiles, identiques, amnésiques, dotés de capteurs leur permettant de percevoir leur environnement, mais incapables de communiquer explicitement. Nous considérons que les robots sont myopes, c'est-à-dire qu'il ne peuvent pas voir au delà d'une certaine distance fixée f. Nous montrons que si f =1, l'exploration avec arrêt déterministe n'est possible que si le système est synchrone. De plus, nous apportons des solutions synchrones déterministes qui sont optimales en nombre de robots
- …