Distributed Average Consensus via Noisy and Noncoherent Over-the-Air Aggregation

Abstract

Over-the-air aggregation has attracted widespread attention for its potential advantages in task-oriented applications, such as distributed sensing, learning, and consensus. In this article, we develop a communication-efficient distributed average consensus protocol by utilizing over-the-air aggregation, which exploits the superposition property of wireless channels rather than combat it. Noisy channels and noncoherent transmission are taken into account, and only half-duplex transceivers are required. We prove that the system can achieve average consensus in mean square and even almost surely under the proposed protocol. Furthermore, we extend the analysis to the scenarios with time-varying topology. Numerical simulation shows the effectiveness of the proposed protocol.