Mutual visibility with an optimal number of colors

Gokarna Sharma, Costas Busch, Supratik Mukhopadhyay

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

35 Scopus citations

Abstract

We consider the following fundamental Mutual Visibility problem: Given a set of n identical autonomous point robots in arbitrary distinct positions in the Euclidean plane, find a schedule to move them such that within finite time they reach, without collisions, a configuration in which they all see each other. The robots operate following Look- Compute-Move cycles and a robot ri can not see other robot rj if there lies a third robot rl in the line segment connecting the positions of ri and rj. Moreover, n is not assumed to be known to the robots. We study this problem in the robots with lights model, where each robot has an externally visible persistent light which can assume colors from a fixed set of colors and the color set is identical to all the robots. This model corresponds to the classical model of oblivious robots when the number of colors c = 1 in the color set. Therefore, we focus here on the objective of minimizing the number of colors required to successfully solve Mutual Visibility. Di Luna et al. [16] presented two algorithms and showed that Mutual Visibility can always be solved without collisions with c = 3 colors for both semi-synchronous and asynchronous robots under both rigid and non-rigid moves. In this paper, we present and analyze an improved algorithm which requires only c = 2 colors and works for both semi-synchronous and asynchronous robots under both rigid and nonrigid moves; this is optimal since any algorithm for Mutual Visibility needs at least 2 colors in the robots with lights model, when n is not known. We employ a non-trivial technique which moves all the interior robots first to the boundary of the initial convex hull and then the robots in the boundary of the hull (except the corners) to outside of the hull until all the robots eventually become corners, without the need of any third color. Our result is interesting in the sense that asynchronicity and non-rigidity of robot movements have no effect on Mutual Visibility with respect to the number of colors needed to successfully solve it. We also provide an improved solution to the Circle Formation problem.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationAlgorithms for Sensor Systems - 11th International Symposium on Algorithms and Experiments for Wireless Sensor Networks, ALGOSENSORS 2015, Revised Selected Papers
EditorsKay Römer, Roger Wattenhofer, Leszek Antoni Gąsieniec, Prosenjit Bose
PublisherSpringer Verlag
Pages196-210
Number of pages15
ISBN (Print)9783319284712
DOIs
StatePublished - 2015
Externally publishedYes
Event11th International Symposium on Algorithms and Experiments for Wireless Sensor Networks, ALGOSENSORS 2015 - Patras, Greece
Duration: Sep 17 2015Sep 18 2015

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume9536
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Conference

Conference11th International Symposium on Algorithms and Experiments for Wireless Sensor Networks, ALGOSENSORS 2015
Country/TerritoryGreece
CityPatras
Period9/17/159/18/15

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Theoretical Computer Science
  • General Computer Science

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Mutual visibility with an optimal number of colors'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this