Section: New Results

Self-stabilizing synchronization in population protocols with cover times

Participants : Joffroy Beauquier, Janna Burman, Shay Kutten, Brigitte Rozoy.

Synchronization is widely considered as an important service in distributed systems which may simplify protocol design. Phase clock is a general synchronization tool that provides a form of a logical time. We have developed a self-stabilizing phase clock algorithm suited to the model of population protocols with cover time. We have shown that a phase clock is impossible in the model with only constant-state agents. Hence, we assumed an existence of resource unlimited agent - the base station. The clock size and duration of each phase of the proposed phase clock tool are adjustable by the user. We provided application examples of this tool and demonstrate how it can simplify the design of protocols. In particular, it yields a solution to Group Mutual Exclusion problem.