Tradeoffs between Cost and Information for Rendezvous and Treasure Hunt

Abstract

Rendezvous and treasure hunt are two basic tasks performed by mobile agents in networks. In rendezvous, two agents, initially located at distinct nodes of the network, traverse edges in synchronous rounds and have to meet at some node. In treasure hunt, a single agent has to find a stationary target (treasure) situated at an unknown node. The network is modeled as an undirected connected graph whose nodes have distinct identities. The cost of a rendezvous algorithm is the worst-case total number of edge traversals performed by both agents until meeting. The cost of a treasure hunt algorithm is the worst-case number of edge traversals performed by the agent until the treasure is found. If the agents have no information about the network, the cost of both rendezvous and treasure hunt can be as large as Θ(e) for networks with e edges.