Impact of Packet Errors on the Min-Consensus Protocol: General Analysis and Application to an Industrial Use Case

Joint decision-making is essential in multi-agent systems when autonomous entities want to collaborate to perform a joint task. The consensus protocol is a viable algorithm for enabling agents to reach a common agreement through communication. Achieving a fast consensus is crucial to ensure timely decision-making. However, communication errors, such as packet errors, can occur, potentially delaying the consensus-reaching process. Moreover, energy consumption remains a challenge in wireless communication. Reducing transmission power can decrease energy consumption but leads to higher packet error rates. In this paper, we investigate the impact of packet errors on the min-consensus protocol with application to an industrial use case. Using simulations of a mobile robot network, we evaluate how varying packet error rates influence the convergence speed, providing insights into the min-consensus protocol’s reliability and efficiency in the presence of packet errors.