Designing a self-sustaining Brownian bug network

Abstract

Brownian bugs are random walkers that can either die, give birth, or remain unchanged at each time step. Using Brownian bugs as nodes, we form a network by linking bugs that are close to each other. When used as a communication network, the Brownian bug network requires cost to transmit or receive data packets. We optimize the cost by searching for the ideal transmission distance of the bugs while targeting full network connectivity constrained by a limited number of hops. We find that increasing transmission lifetime decreases the cost while increasing node capacity increases cost. When choosing an optimal transmission lifetime, the type of system being modeled should be considered.