How does mobility help distributed systems compute?
Abstract
Brains are composed of connected neurons that compute by transmitting signals. The neurons are generally fixed in space, but the communication patterns that enable information processing change rapidly. By contrast, other biological systems, such as ant colonies, bacterial colonies, slime moulds and immune systems, process information using agents that communicate locally while moving through physical space. We refer to systems in which agents are strongly connected and immobile assolid, and to systems in which agents are not hardwired to each other and can move freely asliquid. We ask how collective computation depends on agent movement. A liquid cellular automaton (LCA) demonstrates the effect of movement and communication locality on consensus problems. A simple mathematical model predicts how these properties of the LCA affect how quickly information propagates through the system. While solid brains allow complex network structures to move information over long distances, mobility provides an alternative way for agents to transport information when long-range connectivity is expensive or infeasible. Our results show how simple mobile agents solve global information processing tasks more effectively than similar systems that are stationary.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Apr 22, 2019
- Source ID
- 10.1098/rstb.2018.0375
Entities
People
- Fernando Esponda
- Melanie E. Moses
- Stephanie Forrest
- William Vining
Organizations
- Air Force Research Laboratory
- Arizona State University
- Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
- Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México
- James S. McDonnell Foundation
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- National Science Foundation
- Santa Fe Institute
- University of New Mexico