Delays induce an exponential memory gap for rendezvous in trees

Distributed Computing, 2014

Two identical (anonymous) mobile agents start from arbitrary nodes of an unknown tree and have to meet at some node. Agents move in synchronous rounds: in each round an agent can either stay at the current node or move to one of its neighbors. We consider deterministic algorithms for this rendezvous task. The main result of this paper is a tight trade-off between the optimal time of completing rendezvous and the size of memory of the agents. For agents with k memory bits, we show that optimal rendezvous time is Θ(n + n 2 /k) in n-node trees. More precisely, if k ≥ c log n, for some constant c, we design agents accomplishing rendezvous in arbitrary trees of size n (unknown to the agents) in time O(n + n 2 /k), starting with arbitrary delay. We also show that no pair of agents can accomplish rendezvous in time o(n+n 2 /k), even in the class of lines of known length and even with simultaneous start. Finally, we prove that at least logarithmic memory is necessary for rendezvous, even for agents starting simultaneously in a n-node line.

Proceedinbgs of the 24th ACM symposium on Parallelism in algorithms and architectures - SPAA '12, 2012

Two identical (anonymous) mobile agents start from arbitrary nodes of an unknown tree and have to meet at some node. Agents move in synchronous rounds: in each round an agent can either stay at the current node or move to one of its neighbors. We consider deterministic algorithms for this rendezvous task. The main result of this paper is a tight trade-off between the optimal time of completing rendezvous and the size of memory of the agents. For agents with k memory bits, we show that optimal rendezvous time is Θ(n + n 2 /k) in n-node trees. More precisely, if k ≥ c log n, for some constant c, we design agents accomplishing rendezvous in arbitrary trees of unknown size n in time O(n + n 2 /k), starting with arbitrary delay. We also show that no pair of agents can accomplish rendezvous in time o(n + n 2 /k), even in the class of lines of known length and even with simultaneous start. Finally, we prove that at least logarithmic memory is necessary for rendezvous, even for agents starting simultaneously in a n-node line.

2023

The rendezvous task calls for two mobile agents, starting from different nodes of a network modeled as a graph to meet at the same node. Agents have different labels which are integers from a set {1, . . . , L}. They wake up at possibly different times and move in synchronous rounds. In each round, an agent can either stay idle or move to an adjacent node. We consider deterministic rendezvous algorithms. The time of such an algorithm is the number of rounds since the wakeup of the earlier agent till the meeting. In most of the literature concerning rendezvous in graphs, the graph is finite and the time of rendezvous depends on its size. This approach is impractical for very large graphs and impossible for infinite graphs. For such graphs it is natural to design rendezvous algorithms whose time depends on the initial distance D between the agents. In this paper we adopt this approach and consider rendezvous in infinite trees. All our algorithms work in finite trees as well. Our main goal is to study the impact of orientation of a tree on the time of rendezvous. We first design a rendezvous algorithm working for unoriented regular trees, whose time is in O(z(D) log L), where z(D) is the size of the ball of radius D, i.e, the number of nodes at distance at most D from a given node. The algorithm works for arbitrary delay between waking times of agents and does not require any initial information about parameters L or D. Its disadvantage is its complexity: z(D) is exponential in D for any degree d > 2 of the tree. We prove that this high complexity is inevitable: Ω(z(D)) turns out to be a lower bound on rendezvous time in unoriented regular trees, even for simultaneous start and even when agents know L and D. Then we turn attention to oriented trees. While for arbitrary delay between waking times of agents the lower bound Ω(z(D)) still holds, for simultaneous start the time of rendezvous can be dramatically shortened. We show that if agents know either a polynomial upper bound on L or a linear upper bound on D, then rendezvous can be accomplished in oriented trees in time O(D log L), which is optimal. If no such extra knowledge is available, a significant speedup is still possible: in this case we design an algorithm working in time O(D 2 + log 2 L).

Distributed Computing, 2012

Two identical (anonymous) mobile agents start from arbitrary nodes in an a priori unknown graph and move synchronously from node to node with the goal of meeting. This rendezvous problem has been thoroughly studied, both for anonymous and for labeled agents, along with another basic task, that of exploring graphs by mobile agents. The rendezvous problem is known to be not easier than graph exploration. A well-known recent result on exploration, due to Reingold, states that deterministic exploration of arbitrary graphs can be performed in log-space, i.e., using an agent equipped with O(log n) bits of memory, where n is the size of the graph. In this paper we study the size of memory of mobile agents that permits us to solve the rendezvous A preliminary version of this paper appeared in

Algorithmica, 2006

Two mobile agents having distinct identifiers and located in nodes of an unknown anonymous connected graph, have to meet at some node of the graph. We seek fast deterministic algorithms for this rendezvous problem, under two scenarios: simultaneous startup, when both agents start executing the algorithm at the same time, and arbitrary startup, when starting times of the agents are arbitrarily decided by an adversary. The measure of performance of a rendezvous algorithm is its cost: for a given initial location of agents in a graph, this is the number of steps since the startup of the later agent until rendezvous is achieved. We first show that rendezvous can be completed at cost O(n + log l) on any n-node tree, where l is the smaller of the two identifiers, even with arbitrary startup. This complexity of the cost cannot be improved for some trees, even with simultaneous startup. Efficient rendezvous in trees relies on fast network exploration and cannot be used when the graph contains cycles. We further study the simplest such network, i.e., the ring. We prove that, with simultaneous startup, optimal cost of rendezvous on any ring is (D log l), where D is the initial distance between agents. We also establish bounds on rendezvous cost in rings with arbitrary startup. For arbitrary connected graphs, our main contribution is a deterministic rendezvous algorithm with cost polynomial in n, τ and log l, where τ is the difference between startup times of the agents. We also show a lower bound (n 2 ) on the cost of rendezvous in some family of graphs. If simultaneous startup is assumed, we construct a generic rendezvous algorithm, working for all connected graphs, which is optimal for the class of graphs of bounded degree, if the initial distance between agents is bounded.

Theoretical Computer Science, 2006

Two mobile agents (robots) having distinct labels and located in nodes of an unknown anonymous connected graph, have to meet. We consider the asynchronous version of this well-studied rendezvous problem and we seek fast deterministic algorithms for it. Since in the asynchronous setting meeting at a node, which is normally required in rendezvous, is in general impossible, we relax the demand by allowing meeting of the agents inside an edge as well. The measure of performance of a rendezvous algorithm is its cost: for a given initial location of agents in a graph, this is the number of edge traversals of both agents until rendezvous is achieved. If agents are initially situated at a distance D in an infinite line, we show a rendezvous algorithm with cost O(D|L min | 2 ) when D is known and O((D + |L max |) 3 ) if D is unknown, where |L min | and |L max | are the lengths of the shorter and longer label of the agents, respectively. These results still hold for the case of the ring of unknown size but then we also give an optimal algorithm of cost O(n|L min |), if the size n of the ring is known, and of cost O(n|L max |), if it is unknown. For arbitrary graphs, we show that rendezvous is feasible if an upper bound on the size of the graph is known and we give an optimal algorithm of cost O(D|L min |) if the topology of the graph and the initial positions are known to agents.

Proceedings of the 2014 ACM symposium on Principles of distributed computing - PODC '14, 2014

Two mobile agents, starting from different nodes of a network at possibly different times, have to meet at the same node. This problem is known as rendezvous. Agents move in synchronous rounds. Each agent has a distinct integer label from the set {1, . . . , L}.

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2004

The rendezvous problem in graphs has been extensively studied in the literature, mainly using a randomized approach. Two mobile agents have to meet at some node of a connected graph. We study deterministic algorithms for this problem, assuming that agents have distinct identifiers and are located in nodes of an unknown anonymous connected graph. Startup times of the agents are arbitrarily decided by the adversary. The measure of performance of a rendezvous algorithm is its cost: for a given initial location of agents in a graph, this is the number of steps since the startup of the later agent until rendezvous is achieved. Deterministic rendezvous has been previously shown feasible in arbitrary graphs [16] but the proposed algorithm had cost exponential in the number n of nodes and in the smaller identifier l, and polynomial in the difference τ between startup times. The following problem was stated in [16]: Does there exist a deterministic rendezvous algorithm with cost polynomial in n, τ and in labels L1, L2 of the agents (or even polynomial in n, τ and log L1, log L2)? We give a positive answer to both problems: our main result is a deterministic rendezvous algorithm with cost polynomial in n, τ and log l. We also show a lower bound Ω(n 2 ) on the cost of rendezvous in some family of graphs.

2011

In this paper, we address the deterministic rendezvous in graphs where k mobile agents, disseminated at different times and different nodes, have to meet in finite time at the same node. The mobile agents are autonomous, oblivious, labeled, and move asynchronously. Moreover, we consider an undirected anonymous connected graph. For this problem, we exhibit some asymptotical time and space lower bounds as well as some necessary conditions. We also propose an algorithm that is asymptotically optimal in both space and round complexities.

2012

Communicated by (xxxxxxxxxx) In this paper, we address the deterministic rendezvous in graphs where k mobile agents, disseminated at different times and different nodes, have to meet in finite time at the same node. The mobile agents are autonomous, oblivious, labeled, and move asynchronously. Moreover, we consider an undirected anonymous connected graph. For this problem, we exhibit some asymptotical time and space lower bounds as well as some necessary conditions. We also propose an algorithm that is asymptotically optimal in both space and round complexities.