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In this paper we study population protocols governed by the {\em random scheduler}, which uniformly at random selects pairwise interactions between $n$ agents. The main result of this paper is the first time and space optimal {\em exact…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2021-06-29 Leszek Gąsieniec , Grzegorz Stachowiak , Przemysław Uznański

The standard population protocol model assumes that when two agents interact, each observes the entire state of the other agent. We initiate the study of $\textit{message complexity}$ for population protocols, where the state of an agent is…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2021-12-16 Talley Amir , James Aspnes , David Doty , Mahsa Eftekhari , Eric Severson

We study population protocols, a model of distributed computing appropriate for modeling well-mixed chemical reaction networks and other physical systems where agents exchange information in pairwise interactions, but have no control over…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2021-06-22 David Doty , Mahsa Eftekhari , Eric Severson

We consider the problem of efficiently simulating population protocols. In the population model, we are given a distributed system of $n$ agents modeled as identical finite-state machines. In each time step, a pair of agents is selected…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2020-05-08 Petra Berenbrink , David Hammer , Dominik Kaaser , Ulrich Meyer , Manuel Penschuck , Hung Tran

We consider the problem of multi-choice majority voting in a network of $n$ agents where each agent initially selects a choice from a set of $K$ possible choices. The agents try to infer the choice in majority merely by performing local…

Multiagent Systems · Computer Science 2019-07-17 Hamidreza Bandealinaeini , Saber Salehkaleybar

Population protocols have been introduced as a model of sensor networks consisting of very limited mobile agents with no control over their own movement: A collection of anonymous agents, modeled by finite automata, interact in pairs…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2009-06-18 Olivier Bournez , Jérémie Chalopin , Johanne Cohen , Xavier Koegler

We consider the model of population protocols, which can be viewed as a sequence of random pairwise interactions of $n$ agents (nodes). We show population protocols for two problems: the leader election and the exact majority voting. The…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2017-05-04 Andreas Bilke , Colin Cooper , Robert Elsaesser , Tomasz Radzik

Population protocols are a model of computation in which indistinguishable mobile agents interact in pairs to decide a property of their initial configuration. Originally introduced by Angluin et. al. in 2004 with a constant number of…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2025-04-09 Philipp Czerner , Vincent Fischer , Roland Guttenberg

There has recently been a surge of interest in the computational and complexity properties of the population model, which assumes $n$ anonymous, computationally-bounded nodes, interacting at random, and attempting to jointly compute global…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2022-01-12 Dan Alistarh , Martin Töpfer , Przemysław Uznański

Population protocols are a model of computation in which an arbitrary number of anonymous finite-memory agents are interacting in order to decide by stable consensus a predicate. In this paper, we focus on the counting predicates that asks,…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2022-03-25 Jérôme Leroux

Population protocols have been introduced by Angluin et al. as a model in which n passively mobile anonymous finite-state agents stably compute a predicate on the multiset of their inputs via interactions by pairs. The model has been…

Computational Complexity · Computer Science 2019-02-21 Olivier Bournez , Johanne Cohen , Mikaël Rabie

The population protocol model was introduced by Angluin \emph{et al.} as a model of passively mobile anonymous finite-state agents. This model computes a predicate on the multiset of their inputs via interactions by pairs. The original…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2016-02-12 Olivier Bournez , Johanne Cohen , Mikaël Rabie

Population protocols are a model of distributed computing where $n$ agents, each a simple finite-state machine, interact in pairs to solve a common task against a (adversarial) interaction scheduler. This model was intensively studied in…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2026-05-19 Tom-Lukas Breitkopf , Julien Dallot , Antoine El-Hayek , Stefan Schmid

Population protocols are a popular model of distributed computing, in which randomly-interacting agents with little computational power cooperate to jointly perform computational tasks. Inspired by developments in molecular computation, and…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2017-04-18 Dan Alistarh , James Aspnes , David Eisenstat , Rati Gelashvili , Ronald L. Rivest

The model of population protocols refers to the growing in popularity theoretical framework suitable for studying pairwise interactions within a large collection of simple indistinguishable entities, frequently called agents. In this paper…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2018-03-28 Leszek Gasieniec , Grzegorz Stachowiak

Population protocols are a class of algorithms for modeling distributed computation in networks of finite-state agents communicating through pairwise interactions. Their suitability for analyzing numerous chemical processes has motivated…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2023-04-04 Talley Amir , James Aspnes , John Lazarsfeld

The model of population protocols refers to a large collection of simple indistinguishable entities, frequently called {\em agents}. The agents communicate and perform computation through pairwise interactions. We study fast and space…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2018-05-15 Leszek Gąsieniec , Grzegorz Stachowiak , Przemysław Uznański

Population protocols are a model of distributed computation intended for the study of networks of independent computing agents with dynamic communication structure. Each agent has a finite number of states, and communication opportunities…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2024-09-02 Michael Raskin

Population protocols are a formal model of sensor networks consisting of identical mobile devices. Two devices can interact and thereby change their states. Computations are infinite sequences of interactions in which the interacting…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2018-07-03 Michael Blondin , Javier Esparza , Antonín Kučera

We study exact majority consensus in the population protocol model. In this model, the system is described by a graph $G = (V,E)$ with $n$ nodes, and in each time step, a scheduler samples uniformly at random a pair of adjacent nodes to…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2025-11-04 Joel Rybicki , Jakob Solnerzik , Olivier Stietel , Robin Vacus