Optimal Distributed Leader Election without Decoding

Abstract In the past decades, with the exponential implementation of large-scale wireless networks such as Internet-of-Things, an enormous demand on designing the relative algorithms and protocols has come into our sight. As an important primitive function in wireless communication, the problem of leader election has attracted much attention in research. In this paper, we pursue efficient distributed solutions for leader election in large-scale wireless networks. Specifically, a simple but optimal distributed leader election algorithm in wireless networks with asynchronous wakeup nodes is proposed, under the practical Signal-to-Interference-plus-Noise (SINR) interference-depicting model. Our algorithm is randomized and can elect a leader in an asymptotically optimal time bound of Θ(log n) with high probability, where n is the number of nodes in network. The algorithm does not rely on any information about the network topology, needs only simple node capability to implement, and uses no encoding and decoding functions. Hence, the algorithm is efficient and energy-saving, which makes it possible to be implemented in a wide range of scenarios, and become a building block for many higher-level operations, like consensus, broadcast and so on.