On the Structural Perspective of Computational Effectiveness for Quantized Consensus in Layered UAV Networks

Distributed computing tasks in small unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) networks require effective data transmission schemes because of limited communication channels and transmission power. In this paper, we use distributed consensus as a canonical distributed computing task to study the effectiveness of the data transmission in digitized (quantized) channels for UAV networks. We show that layered structures are more effective than equivalent egalitarian structures in terms of the data transmission load required to reach consensus. In particular, we establish explicit relationships between simple structural characteristics and the performance of quantized consensus (e.g., consensus condition, consensus value, and transmission load to reach consensus) for broad classes of layered structures. We also provide analytical results on asymptotic and transient performance when additional local memories are used to further reduce the data transmission load to reach consensus.