Chemistry-Inspired Algorithm for Emergent Distributed Consensus in WSNs

In wireless sensor and actor networks (WSANs), nodes collaborate to accomplish distributed sensing and computation. One of the most attractive features is that global macro-behaviors in the network emerge from local micro-actions in and interactions between nodes. In this paper, we review a recently proposed approach, which bases on a chemical metaphor and its related theory, to design, analyze, and implement systems with such an emerging property. As an example of distributed, emerging computation in WSNs, we extend an existing gossip-like chemistry-inspired protocol (the "Disperser") and propose a new chemically driven solution to consensus problems that is applicable in WSNs. We analyze it with a signal processing approach and validate results through simulations. The proposed chemical algorithm is not based on the iterative packet-exchange but rather on a continuous rate-modulation. The algorithm is thought to lie at the physical layer and to directly control the basic transmission hardware of the nodes in a sort of protocol-less operation mode.