Low-Bit Distributed Constrained Optimization with Application to Optimal Scheduling and Allocation

Abstract

This paper proposes a distributed resource allocation algorithm in which each agent communicates only the sign of its local cost gradient, a single bit per directed link per iteration. The algorithm is based on Laplacian-gradient dynamics and preserves the equality (demand) constraint at every iterate, guaranteeing anytime feasibility irrespective of termination time. First, we provide a complete Lyapunov-based convergence analysis for the fixed-step-size regime: the iterates are shown to enter, in at most O(1/\varepsilon^2) iterations, a neighborhood of the optimizer whose radius scales as O(τ) in the decision variable and O(τ^2) in the cost residual, where $τ$ is the step-size. Crucially, the step-size bound is a time-invariant network constant (depending only on the graph Laplacian spectrum and the cost curvature bounds), so no adaptive tuning is required. Second, we characterize the invariant set under B-connected, weight-balanced digraphs, strictly weaker than the all-time connectivity and doubly-stochastic weights assumed in most prior work, and show that any odd, sign-preserving nonlinearity yields the same invariant-set and descent structure, with the single-bit protocol being the extreme communication-minimizing instance of a broader nonlinear class. Third, we address local box constraints via smooth penalty relaxation and quantify explicitly how the penalty weight interacts with the step-size bound and the optimality gap. Simulations on economic dispatch (1000 generators) and CPU scheduling (500 servers) demonstrate that the single-bit protocol achieves 5-60 times reduction in total communication cost relative to multi-bit baselines, at the price of a tunable and explicitly bounded optimality gap. A diminishing step-size schedule is shown empirically to eliminate this gap; its formal convergence analysis is identified as an open problem.