Two mobile agents, starting at arbitrary, possibly different times from
arbitrary locations in the plane, have to meet. Agents are modeled as discs of
diameter 1, and meeting occurs when these discs touch. Agents have different
labels which are integers from the set of 0 to L-1. Each agent knows L and
knows its own label, but not the label of the other agent. Agents are equipped
with compasses and have synchronized clocks. They make a series of moves. Each
move specifies the direction and the duration of moving. This includes a null
move which consists in staying inert for some time, or forever. In a non-null
move agents travel at the same constant speed, normalized to 1. We assume that
agents have sensors enabling them to estimate the distance from the other agent
(defined as the distance between centers of discs), but not the direction
towards it. We consider two models of estimation. In both models an agent reads
its sensor at the moment of its appearance in the plane and then at the end of
each move. This reading (together with the previous ones) determines the
decision concerning the next move. In both models the reading of the sensor
tells the agent if the other agent is already present. Moreover, in the
monotone model, each agent can find out, for any two readings in moments t1 and
t2, whether the distance from the other agent at time t1 was smaller, equal or
larger than at time t2. In the weaker binary model, each agent can find out, at
any reading, whether it is at distance less than \r{ho} or at distance at least
\r{ho} from the other agent, for some real \r{ho} > 1 unknown to them. Such
distance estimation mechanism can be implemented, e.g., using chemical sensors.
Each agent emits some chemical substance (scent), and the sensor of the other
agent detects it, i.e., sniffs. The intensity of the scent decreases with the
distance.Comment: A preliminary version of this paper appeared in the Proc. 23rd
International Colloquium on Structural Information and Communication
Complexity (SIROCCO 2016), LNCS 998