Wireless Consensus: Theory and Applications

This book explores the critical role of wireless consensus protocols in modern wireless networks. Building upon over two decades of research, it offers a comprehensive exploration of the fundamental principles, historical evolution, and unique challenges associated with wireless consensus. Beyond the theoretical underpinnings, the book delves into practical solutions for ensuring fault tolerance and resilience against malicious attacks, introducing cutting-edge techniques like fault-tolerant wireless consensus and Byzantine fault-tolerant wireless consensus. Recognizing the transformative potential of blockchain technology, the book also explores its integration with wireless networks, highlighting the emergence of wireless blockchain. Through in-depth analysis, real-world case studies, and forward-thinking insights, this book empowers readers to understand, design, and implement robust wireless consensus systems.

Overall, wireless consensus protocols are essential for enabling reliable decision-making and coordination in wireless networks, particularly in challenging environments with unreliable communication and no central authority. These protocols empower devices to reach agreement on a common state or course of action, ensuring network consistency and security. Additionally, efficient consensus algorithms are crucial for resource-constrained wireless settings, optimizing bandwidth and energy usage to facilitate scalability and broad adoption. With applications spanning IoT, mobile computing, and distributed robotics, wireless consensus underpins critical operations like coordination and data fusion.

This book serves as a valuable resource for both academics and industry professionals. Advanced-level computer science students will find it a suitable supplementary text, while researchers and practitioners seeking a deep understanding of wireless consensus protocols will benefit from its comprehensive coverage. By blending theoretical foundations with practical applications in contemporary wireless networks, this book offers a robust guide for navigating the complexities of the field.

Dr. Minghui Xu is an Associate Professor in the School of Computer Science and Technology at Shandong University, where he co-leads the Blockchain and Distributed Computing Lab with Prof. Xiuzhen Cheng. Prior to joining Shandong University, he completed his Ph.D. in Computer Science from The George Washington University in 2021 and his B.S. degree in Physics from Beijing Normal University in 2018. He has been an academic guest of ETH Zurich. Dr. Xu’s research focuses on blockchain, distributed computing, and applied cryptography. He has published papers on pretigious conferences and journals, including USENIX Security, IEEE INFOCOM, ICDCS, TMC, TC, JSAC, TPDS, TWC. He also served as the editorial board member of Elsevier High-Confidence Computing, and the session chair of several conferences including IEEE IPCCC, IEEE FNWF, IEEE MASS and IEEE ICMC.

Dr. Yifei Zou received the B.E. degree in computer science and technology from Computer School, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China, in 2016, and the Ph.D. degree in computer science from the Department of Computer Science, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China, in 2020. He is currently an Assistant Professor with the School of Computer Science and Technology, Shandong University, Qingdao, China. He won the best paper awards in CCF ICoC 2016, IIKI 2019, and WASA 2020. His research interests include wireless networks, distributed computing, and edge intelligence.

Dr. Xiuzhen Cheng is now a Chair Professor, serving as the Dean of the School of Computer Science and Technology at Shandong University and Director of the Meta-Computing Research Institute. From 2002 to 2020, she was a faculty member at The George Washington University, USA. She served as a Program Director at NSF from April 2006 to October 2006 (full time) and from April 2008 to April 2010 (part-time). Her research focuses on the broad area of distributed and trusted computing, particularly in blockchain computing, edge computing, and IoT security. Dr. Cheng is the founder and steering committee chair of the International Conference on Wireless Algorithms, Systems, and Applications (WASA, launched in 2006), and the founding EiC of the High-Confidence Computing Journal (launched in 2021).  She served/is serving on the editorial boards of several technical journals (e.g. IEEE Transactions on Computers and IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications) and the technical program committees of many professional conferences/workshops (e.g. ACM Mobihoc, ACM Mobisys, IEEE INFOCOM, IEEE ICDCS, IEEE/ACM IWQoS). She also chaired several international conferences (e.g. ACM Mobihoc'14). Dr. Cheng is a Fellow of IEEE, a Fellow of CSEE (Chinese Society for Electrical Engineering), and a Fellow of AAIA (Asia-Pacific Artificial Intelligence Association). Her current H-Index is 64, and the total number of Google Citations is over 20,000.