Energy-optimal broadcast and exploration in a tree using mobile agents.

A set of k mobile agents is deployed at the root r of a weighted, n-node tree T. The weight of each tree edge represents the distance between the corresponding nodes along the edge. One node of the tree, the source s, possesses a piece of information which has to be communicated (broadcasted) to all other nodes using mobile agents. An agent visiting a node, which already possesses the information, automatically acquires it and communicates it to all nodes subsequently visited by this agent. The process finishes when the information is transferred to all nodes of the tree.