CoCoNat · Coordination in constrained and natural distributed systems
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2019-06-01 → 2021-05-31
- EU contribution
- €174,167
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-EF-ST
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Coordination in constrained and natural distributed systems
The design of scalable and reliable distributed systems relies on communication-efficient synchronization algorithms, as nodes in the network need to coordinate their activities in a collective fashion. This project investigated the complexity of fundamental distributed synchronization and coordination tasks in constrained distributed systems with limited computational and communicational capabilities. These systems arise in the context of contemporary networking applications, but also in novel application areas such as molecular computing and biocomputing. The main focus of the project was to understand how limitations, such as small communication bandwidth, asynchronous computation, or unreliable and unpredictable interaction patterns, influence the solvability and complexity of basic synchronization and coordination tasks in different models of distributed computing. During the course of the project, several new analysis techniques were developed. These have been used to show both (1) new improved algorithms and (2) complementary impossibility results for several coordination problems in various models of distributed computing. For example, we showed new results regarding on reaching approximate agreement in a fault-tolerant manner, studied how to efficiently deal with dynamically changing inputs in large-scale communication networks, and gave new algorithms for leader election and majority tasks in spatially-structured biomolecular systems.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
In recent years, an algorithmic theory of natural and biological systems has been increasingly advocated as providing a much needed framework for investigating complex self-organising processes in nature. This project contributes to this research program by employing the distributed computing lens to model natural phenomena. Biological systems exhibit many properties also studied in distributed computing: they comprise several independently acting entities, tend to operate in noisy and dynamic environments, thus requiring them to be highly-resilient and adaptive, solve intricate coordination tasks, and display sophisticated communication techniques.This project aims to develop the theory of distributed synchronisation and coordination tasks in restricted models of distributed computing. These tasks are some of the most fundamental problems in distributed computing, as they are essential in computer networks as well as numerous other areas of engineering and computing. In addition, they are ubiquitous in natural and biological systems, ranging from molecular to population-level systems, which are known to solve various synchronisation and coordination tasks: examples include symmetry-breaking during the development of the nervous system, consensus decision making in species communities, and synchronisation in firefly populations and embryonic development.Unlike computer networks, biological distributed systems have unique features: (1) the agents typically have limited computational abilities, (2) communication is unreliable and restricted, (3) the system has a dynamic spatial structure, and (4) the environment may be noisy. Currently, distributed computing models that consider all aspects simultaneously are lacking. The proposed research approaches this goal from multiple angles by developing new models and analysis methods for determining the limitations of synchronisation and related tasks in both strong and weak models of computing.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY AUSTRIA · KlosterneuburgCoordinatorAustria
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union