Electing a Leader in Dynamic Networks using Mobile Agents and Local Computations

In dynamic distributed systems, the topology of networks changes over time which makes difficult the design and much harder the proof of distributed algorithms. These unavoidable changes of the topology make the election and the maintenance of the elected leader a complex task. The maintaining problem is not considered in a static context. To encode distributed algorithms, we adopt the local computation model. Distributed algorithms are formally presented by transitions systems. Based on both, the mobile agent paradigm and the local computation model, we present in this paper a distributed algorithm that elects a leader in a tree. A set of topological events that may affect the structure of the tree: we focus on the appearance and the disappearance of places as well as the communication channels. Our goal is to maintain always a tree with a single leader or a forest of trees where each one has his own leader. 1877-0509 (C) 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.