Iterative Byzantine Vector Consensus in Incomplete Graphs

This work addresses Byzantine vector consensus (BVC), wherein the input at each process is a d-dimensional vector of reals, and each process is expected to decide on a decision vector that is in the convex hull of the input vectors at the fault-free processes [3, 8]. The input vector at each process may also be viewed as a point in the d-dimensional Euclidean space R, where d > 0 is a finite integer. Recent work [3, 8] has addressed Byzantine vector consensus in systems that can be modeled by a complete graph. This paper considers Byzantine vector consensus in incomplete graphs. In particular, we address a particular class of iterative algorithms in incomplete graphs, and prove a necessary condition, and a sufficient condition, for the graphs to be able to solve the vector consensus problem iteratively. We present an iterative Byzantine vector consensus algorithm, and prove it correct under the sufficient condition. The necessary condition presented in this paper for vector consensus does not match with the sufficient condition for d > 1; thus, a weaker condition may potentially suffice for Byzantine vector consensus.