Global Synchronization and Consensus Using Beeps in a Fault-Prone MAC

Abstract: Consensus is one of the fundamental tasks studied in distributed computing. Processors have input values from some set $V$ and they have to decide the same value from this set. If all processors have the same input value, then they must all decide this value. We study the task of consensus in a Multiple Access Channel (MAC) prone to faults, under a very weak communication model called the $\mathit{beeping\ model}$. Communication proceeds in synchronous rounds. Some processors wake up spontaneously, in possibly different rounds decided by an adversary. In each round, an awake processor can either listen, i.e., stay silent, or beep, i.e., emit a signal. In each round, a fault can occur in the channel independently with constant probability $0<p\<1$. In a fault-free round, an awake processor hears a beep if it listens in this round and if one or more other processors beep in this round. A processor still dormant in a fault-free round in which some other processor beeps is woken up by this beep and hears it. In a faulty round nothing is heard, regardless of the behaviour of the processors. An algorithm working with error probability at most $\epsilon$, for a given $\epsilon\>0$, is called $\epsilon$-$\mathit{safe}$. Our main result is the design and analysis, for any constant $\epsilon>0$, of a deterministic $\epsilon$-safe consensus algorithm that works in time $O(\log w)$ in a fault-prone MAC, where $w$ is the smallest input value of all participating processors. We show that this time cannot be improved, even when the MAC is fault-free. The main algorithmic tool that we develop to achieve our goal, and that might be of independent interest, is a deterministic algorithm that, with arbitrarily small constant error probability, establishes a global clock in a fault-prone MAC in constant time.