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Moving and Computing Models: Agents

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Distributed Computing by Mobile Entities

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 11340))

Abstract

This chapter introduces and discusses the existing computational models employed in the literature for studying the feasibility and complexity of computations by mobile agents: computational mobile entities that operate and move in discrete spaces, modeled as graphs.

While almost all models share some fundamental features, making basic common assumptions, their fundamental differences depend on the assumptions made on the capabilities of the agents, in particular on the means of interaction with the environment and of inter-agent communication. Clearly, there are many variations of the models, depending on the assumed level of synchrony, anonymity, persistent memory, and topological knowledge. This Chapter aims to provide an overview of these models and assumptions.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Although directed graphs may be more natural for certain applications, the problems of agents moving in directed graphs are largely unexplored.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Aix-Marseille University, CNRS, LIS, Marseille, France

    Shantanu Das

  2. Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada

    Nicola Santoro

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  1. Shantanu Das
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  2. Nicola Santoro
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Correspondence to Shantanu Das or Nicola Santoro .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada

    Paola Flocchini

  2. University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy

    Giuseppe Prencipe

  3. Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada

    Nicola Santoro

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Das, S., Santoro, N. (2019). Moving and Computing Models: Agents. In: Flocchini, P., Prencipe, G., Santoro, N. (eds) Distributed Computing by Mobile Entities. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11340. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11072-7_2

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