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Anytime Optimal Coalition Structure Generation

Anytime Optimal Coalition Structure Generation
Anytime Optimal Coalition Structure Generation
Forming effective coalitions is a major research challenge in the field of multi-agent systems. Central to this endeavour is the problem of determining the best groups of agents to select to achieve some goal. To this end, in this paper, we present a novel, optimal anytime algorithm for this coalition structure generation problem that is significantly faster than previous algorithms designed for this purpose. Specifically, our algorithm can generate solutions by partitioning the space of all potential coalitions into sub-spaces that contain coalition structures that are similar, according to some criterion, such that these sub-spaces can be pruned by identifying their bounds. Using this representation, the algorithm then searches through only valid and unique coalition structures and selects the best among them using a branch-and-bound technique. We empirically show that we are able to find solutions that are optimal in 0.082% of the time taken by the state of the art dynamic programming algorithm (for 27 agents) using much less memory O(2n) instead of O(3n) for the set of n agents). Moreover, our algorithm is the first to be able to solve the coalition structure generation problem for numbers of agents bigger than 27 in reasonable time (less than 90 minutes for 27 agents as opposed to around 2 months for the best previous solution).
Coalition Formation, Multi-agent Systems, Coalition Structure Generation, Search, Combinatorial, Set Partitioning
1184-1190
Rahwan, Talal
476029f3-5484-4747-9f44-f63f3687083c
Ramchurn, Sarvapali D.
1d62ae2a-a498-444e-912d-a6082d3aaea3
Dang, Viet D.
44b856fb-6e84-44dc-898a-ac711dfa0790
Giovannucci, Andrea
710ddc7b-0664-44f6-bf17-85a210a22239
Jennings, N. R.
ab3d94cc-247c-4545-9d1e-65873d6cdb30
Rahwan, Talal
476029f3-5484-4747-9f44-f63f3687083c
Ramchurn, Sarvapali D.
1d62ae2a-a498-444e-912d-a6082d3aaea3
Dang, Viet D.
44b856fb-6e84-44dc-898a-ac711dfa0790
Giovannucci, Andrea
710ddc7b-0664-44f6-bf17-85a210a22239
Jennings, N. R.
ab3d94cc-247c-4545-9d1e-65873d6cdb30

Rahwan, Talal, Ramchurn, Sarvapali D., Dang, Viet D., Giovannucci, Andrea and Jennings, N. R. (2007) Anytime Optimal Coalition Structure Generation. 22nd Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), Vancouver, Canada. pp. 1184-1190 .

Record type: Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)

Abstract

Forming effective coalitions is a major research challenge in the field of multi-agent systems. Central to this endeavour is the problem of determining the best groups of agents to select to achieve some goal. To this end, in this paper, we present a novel, optimal anytime algorithm for this coalition structure generation problem that is significantly faster than previous algorithms designed for this purpose. Specifically, our algorithm can generate solutions by partitioning the space of all potential coalitions into sub-spaces that contain coalition structures that are similar, according to some criterion, such that these sub-spaces can be pruned by identifying their bounds. Using this representation, the algorithm then searches through only valid and unique coalition structures and selects the best among them using a branch-and-bound technique. We empirically show that we are able to find solutions that are optimal in 0.082% of the time taken by the state of the art dynamic programming algorithm (for 27 agents) using much less memory O(2n) instead of O(3n) for the set of n agents). Moreover, our algorithm is the first to be able to solve the coalition structure generation problem for numbers of agents bigger than 27 in reasonable time (less than 90 minutes for 27 agents as opposed to around 2 months for the best previous solution).

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More information

Published date: February 2007
Venue - Dates: 22nd Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), Vancouver, Canada, 2007-02-01
Keywords: Coalition Formation, Multi-agent Systems, Coalition Structure Generation, Search, Combinatorial, Set Partitioning
Organisations: Agents, Interactions & Complexity

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 263433
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/263433
PURE UUID: 29565aa4-6181-4c28-b8ad-1de945135ee2
ORCID for Sarvapali D. Ramchurn: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-9686-4302

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 14 Feb 2007
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 03:22

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Contributors

Author: Talal Rahwan
Author: Sarvapali D. Ramchurn ORCID iD
Author: Viet D. Dang
Author: Andrea Giovannucci
Author: N. R. Jennings

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