Radio networks are a long-studied model for distributed system of devices which communicate wirelessly. When these devices are mobile or have limited capabilities, the system is often best modeled by the ad-hoc variant, in which the devices do not know the structure of the network. A large body of work has been devoted to designing algorithms for the ad-hoc model, particularly for fundamental communications tasks such as broadcasting. Most of these algorithms, however, assume that devices have some network knowledge (usually bounds on the number of nodes in the network @math , and the diameter @math ), which may not always be realistic in systems with weak devices or gradual deployment. Very little is known about what can be done when this information is not available. This is the issue we address in this work, by presenting the first broadcasting algorithms for networks in which nodes have no prior knowledge whatsoever. We demonstrate that lack of parameter knowledge can be overcome at only a small increase in running time. Specifically, we show that in networks without collision detection, broadcast can be achieved in @math time, almost reaching the @math lower bound. We also give an algorithm for directed networks with collision detection, which requires only @math time.
More recently, Ghaffari, Haupler and Khabbazian @cite_2 showed that collision detection can be used to surpass this lower bound, attaining an @math time algorithm. Work by Haeupler and Wajc @cite_14 demonstrated that even without collision detection, the lower bound could be beaten assuming were permitted; that is, nodes have access to a global clock and are allowed to transmit before receiving the source message. Czumaj and Davies @cite_9 extended this approach and obtained a running time of @math for the setting with spontaneous transmissions. However, these algorithms only work in undirected networks.
@cite_9 @cite_14 @cite_2
2951342393 2048113794
We study two fundamental communication primitives: broadcasting and leader election in the classical model of multi-hop radio networks with unknown topology and without collision detection mechanisms. It has been known for almost 20 years that in undirected networks with n nodes and diameter D, randomized broadcasting requires Omega(D log n D + log^2 n) rounds in expectation, assuming that uninformed nodes are not allowed to communicate (until they are informed). Only very recently, Haeupler and Wajc (PODC'2016) showed that this bound can be slightly improved for the model with spontaneous transmissions, providing an O(D log n loglog n log D + log^O(1) n)-time broadcasting algorithm. In this paper, we give a new and faster algorithm that completes broadcasting in O(D log n log D + log^O(1) n) time, with high probability. This yields the first optimal O(D)-time broadcasting algorithm whenever D is polynomial in n. Furthermore, our approach can be applied to design a new leader election algorithm that matches the performance of our broadcasting algorithm. Previously, all fast randomized leader election algorithms have been using broadcasting as their subroutine and their complexity have been asymptotically strictly bigger than the complexity of broadcasting. In particular, the fastest previously known randomized leader election algorithm of Ghaffari and Haeupler (SODA'2013) requires O(D log n D min loglog n, log n D + log^O(1) n)-time with high probability. Our new algorithm requires O(D log n log D + log^O(1) n) time with high probability, and it achieves the optimal O(D) time whenever D is polynomial in n. We study the problem of waking up a collection of @math processors connected by a multihop ad hoc ratio network with unknown topology, no access to a global clock, and no collision detection mechanism available. Each node in the network either wakes up spontaneously or gets activated by receiving a wake-up signal from another node. All active nodes transmit the wake-up signals according to a given protocol @math . The running time of @math is the number of steps counted from the first spontaneous wake-up until all nodes become activated. We provide two protocols for this problem. The first one is a deterministic protocol with running time @math . Our protocol is based on a novel concept of a shift-tolerant selector to which we refer as a (radio) synchronizer. The second protocol is randomized, and its expected running time is @math , where @math is the diameter of the network. Subsequently we show how to employ our wake-up protocols to solve two other communication primitives: leader election and clock synchronization. Abstract We address the fundamental distributed problem of leader election in ad hoc radio networks modeled as undirected graphs. A signal from a transmitting node reaches all neighbors but a message is received successfully by a node, if and only if exactly one of its neighbors transmits in this round. If two neighbors of a node transmit simultaneously in a given round, we say that a collision occurred at this node. Collision detection is the ability of nodes to distinguish a collision from silence. We show that collision detection speeds up leader election in arbitrary radio networks. Our main result is a deterministic leader election algorithm working in time O ( n ) in all n -node networks, if collision detection is available, while it is known that deterministic leader election requires time  ( n log n ) , even for complete networks, if there is no collision detection.