Average Bridge Consensus: Dealing With Active-Passive Sensors

Abstract

In network average consensus problems, a failure, in which a node cannot provide the initial value, but can communicate with its neighbors gives rise to the bridge consensus problem. In its formulation, the failed node serves as a bridge which maintains the network communication connectivity, and its failure to provide the value does not impact the capability of the rest of the network nodes to reach a consensus. The proposed bridge consensus solution can deal with multiple failing nodes and large networks in a scalable manner. The solution properties are proven and illustrated by a numerical example.