Map construction and exploration by mobile agents scattered in a dangerous network
Paola Flocchini, Matthew Kellett, Peter Mason, Nicola Santoro · 2009
We consider the map construction problem in a simple, connected graph by a set of mobile computation entities or agents that start from scattered locations throughout the graph. The problem is further complicated by dangerous elements, nodes and links, in the graph that eliminate agents traversing or arriving at them. The agents working in the graph communicate using a limited amount of storage at each node and work asynchronously. We present a deterministic algorithm that solves the exploration and map construction problems. The end result is also a rooted spanning tree and the election of a leader. The total cost of the algorithm is O(nsm) total number of moves, where m is the number of links in the network and nsis the number of safe nodes, improving the existing O(m2) bound.