Self-stabilizing scheduling algorithm for cooperating robots

Summary form only given. We address the problem of autonomous robots which alternate between execution of individual tasks and peer-to-peer communication. Each robot keeps in its permanent memory a set of locations where it can meet some of the other robots. The proposed self-stabilizing algorithm solves the management of visits to these locations ensuring that after the stabilizing phase, every visit to a location will lead to a communication. We model the untimed behaviour of a robot by a Petri net and the timed behaviour by an (in/spl I.bar/nite) discrete time Markov chain. Theoretical results in this area are then combined in order to establish the proof of the algorithm.