Synthesis in Presence of Dynamic Links

Abstract

The problem of distributed synthesis is to automatically generate a distributed algorithm, given a target communication network and a specification of the algorithm's correct behavior. Previous work has focused on static networks with an apriori fixed message size. This approach has two shortcomings: Recent work in distributed computing is shifting towards dynamically changing communication networks rather than static ones, and an important class of distributed algorithms are so-called full-information protocols, where nodes piggy-pack previously received messages onto current messages. In this work we consider the synthesis problem for a system of two nodes communicating in rounds over a dynamic link whose message size is not bounded. Given a network model, i.e., a set of link directions, in each round of the execution, the adversary choses a link from the network model, restricted only by the specification, and delivers messages according to the current link's directions. Motivated by communication buses with direct acknowledge mechanisms we further assume that nodes are aware of which messages have been delivered. We show that the synthesis problem is decidable for a network model if and only if it does not contain the empty link that dismisses both nodes' messages.