Energy-aware tree network formation among computationally weak nodes

Abstract We study the fundamental problem of distributed network formation among mobile agents of limited computational power that aim to achieve energy balance by wirelessly transmitting and receiving energy in a peer-to-peer manner. Specifically, we design simple distributed protocols consisting of a small number of states and interaction rules for the formation of arbitrary and k-ary tree networks. Furthermore, we evaluate (theoretically and also using computer simulations) a plethora of energy redistribution protocols that exploit different levels of knowledge in order to achieve desired energy distributions among the agents which require that every agent has exactly or at least twice the energy of the agents of higher depth, according to the structure of the network. Our study shows that without using any knowledge about the network structure, such energy distributions cannot be achieved in a timely manner, meaning that there might be high energy loss during the redistribution process. On the other hand, only a few extra bits of information seem to be enough to guarantee quick convergence to energy distributions that satisfy particular properties, yielding low energy loss.