Combinatorial optimization: algorithms and complexity
Combinatorial optimization: algorithms and complexity
Solving airline crew scheduling problems by branch-and-cut
Management Science
Coalitions among computationally bounded agents
Artificial Intelligence - Special issue on economic principles of multi-agent systems
Methods for task allocation via agent coalition formation
Artificial Intelligence
Computationally Manageable Combinational Auctions
Management Science
Coalition structure generation with worst case guarantees
Artificial Intelligence
Customer coalitions in the electronic marketplace
AGENTS '00 Proceedings of the fourth international conference on Autonomous agents
An agent-based approach for building complex software systems
Communications of the ACM
Algorithm for combinatorial coalition formation and payoff division in an electronic marketplace
Proceedings of the first international joint conference on Autonomous agents and multiagent systems: part 1
Searching for Optimal Coalition Structures
ICMAS '00 Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on MultiAgent Systems (ICMAS-2000)
Generating Coalition Structures with Finite Bound from the Optimal Guarantees
AAMAS '04 Proceedings of the Third International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems - Volume 2
A survey of multi-agent organizational paradigms
The Knowledge Engineering Review
Introduction to Operations Research and Revised CD-ROM 8
Introduction to Operations Research and Revised CD-ROM 8
An algorithm for distributing coalitional value calculations among cooperating agents
Artificial Intelligence
An improved dynamic programming algorithm for coalition structure generation
Proceedings of the 7th international joint conference on Autonomous agents and multiagent systems - Volume 3
Overlapping coalition formation for efficient data fusion in multi-sensor networks
AAAI'06 Proceedings of the 21st national conference on Artificial intelligence - Volume 1
Anytime optimal coalition structure generation
AAAI'07 Proceedings of the 22nd national conference on Artificial intelligence - Volume 2
Coalition structure generation: dynamic programming meets anytime optimization
AAAI'08 Proceedings of the 23rd national conference on Artificial intelligence - Volume 1
Near-optimal anytime coalition structure generation
IJCAI'07 Proceedings of the 20th international joint conference on Artifical intelligence
Task allocation via coalition formation among autonomous agents
IJCAI'95 Proceedings of the 14th international joint conference on Artificial intelligence - Volume 1
On representing coalitional games with externalities
Proceedings of the 10th ACM conference on Electronic commerce
Coalition structure generation in multi-agent systems with positive and negative externalities
IJCAI'09 Proceedings of the 21st international jont conference on Artifical intelligence
Searching for overlapping coalitions in multiple virtual organizations
Information Sciences: an International Journal
A distributed algorithm for anytime coalition structure generation
Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems: volume 1 - Volume 1
Anytime dynamic programming for coalition structure generation
Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems: volume 1 - Volume 1
On the stability of an Optimal Coalition Structure
Proceedings of the 2010 conference on ECAI 2010: 19th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence
Coalition structure generation with GRASP
AIMSA'10 Proceedings of the 14th international conference on Artificial intelligence: methodology, systems, and applications
Architecture exploration for efficient data transfer and storage in data-parallel applications
EuroPar'10 Proceedings of the 16th international Euro-Par conference on Parallel processing: Part I
Non-transferable utility coalitional games via mixed-integer linear constraints
Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research
A revision algorithm for invalid encodings in concurrent formation of overlapping coalitions
Applied Soft Computing
Cooperative games with overlapping coalitions
Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research
Coalition formation for task allocation: theory and algorithms
Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems
Constant factor approximation algorithms for coalition structure generation
Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems
Complexity of coalition structure generation
The 10th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems - Volume 1
A truth serum for sharing rewards
The 10th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems - Volume 2
Computing optimal coalition structures in non-linear logistics domains
International Journal of Intelligent Information and Database Systems
Putting the 'smarts' into the smart grid: a grand challenge for artificial intelligence
Communications of the ACM
Flood disaster mitigation: a real-world challenge problem for multi-agent unmanned surface vehicles
AAMAS'11 Proceedings of the 10th international conference on Advanced Agent Technology
Modeling and solving AFs with a constraint-based tool: conarg
TAFA'11 Proceedings of the First international conference on Theory and Applications of Formal Argumentation
Minimum search to establish worst-case guarantees in coalition structure generation
IJCAI'11 Proceedings of the Twenty-Second international joint conference on Artificial Intelligence - Volume Volume One
Randomized coalition structure generation
Artificial Intelligence
Dynamic reconfiguration in modular robots using graph partitioning-based coalitions
Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems - Volume 1
Handling negative value rules in MC-net-based coalition structure generation
Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems - Volume 2
Sharing Rewards Among Strangers Based on Peer Evaluations
Decision Analysis
Considering inter-task resource constraints in task allocation
Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems
Computing desirable partitions in additively separable hedonic games
Artificial Intelligence
Coalition structure generation over graphs
Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research
Tasks for agent-based negotiation teams: Analysis, review, and challenges
Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence
C-link: a hierarchical clustering approach to large-scale near-optimal coalition formation
IJCAI'13 Proceedings of the Twenty-Third international joint conference on Artificial Intelligence
Coalitional games via network flows
IJCAI'13 Proceedings of the Twenty-Third international joint conference on Artificial Intelligence
Coalition formation based on marginal contributions and the Markov process
Decision Support Systems
Fostering Cooperation through Dynamic Coalition Formation and Partner Switching
ACM Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems (TAAS)
Hi-index | 0.02 |
Coalition formation is a fundamental type of interaction that involves the creation of coherent groupings of distinct, autonomous, agents in order to efficiently achieve their individual or collective goals. Forming effective coalitions is a major research challenge in the field of multi-agent systems. Central to this endeavour is the problem of determining which of the many possible coalitions to form in order to achieve some goal. This usually requires calculating a value for every possible coalition, known as the coalition value, which indicates how beneficial that coalition would be if it was formed. Once these values are calculated, the agents usually need to find a combination of coalitions, in which every agent belongs to exactly one coalition, and by which the overall outcome of the system is maximized. However, this coalition structure generation problem is extremely challenging due to the number of possible solutions that need to be examined, which grows exponentially with the number of agents involved. To date, therefore, many algorithms have been proposed to solve this problem using different techniques -- ranging from dynamic programming, to integer programming, to stochastic search -- all of which suffer from major limitations relating to execution time, solution quality, and memory requirements. With this in mind, we develop an anytime algorithm to solve the coalition structure generation problem. Specifically, the algorithm uses a novel representation of the search space, which partitions the space of possible solutions into sub-spaces such that it is possible to compute upper and lower bounds on the values of the best coalition structures in them. These bounds are then used to identify the sub-spaces that have no potential of containing the optimal solution so that they can be pruned. The algorithm, then, searches through the remaining sub-spaces very efficiently using a branch-and-bound technique to avoid examining all the solutions within the searched subspace(s). In this setting, we prove that our algorithm enumerates all coalition structures efficiently by avoiding redundant and invalid solutions automatically. Moreover, in order to effectively test our algorithm we develop a new type of input distribution which allows us to generate more reliable benchmarks compared to the input distributions previously used in the field. Given this new distribution, we show that for 27 agents our algorithm is able to find solutions that are optimal in 0.175% of the time required by the fastest available algorithm in the literature. The algorithm is anytime, and if interrupted before it would have normally terminated, it can still provide a solution that is guaranteed to be within a bound from the optimal one. Moreover, the guarantees we provide on the quality of the solution are significantly better than those provided by the previous state of the art algorithms designed for this purpose. For example, for the worst case distribution given 25 agents, our algorithm is able to find a 90% efficient solution in around 10% of time it takes to find the optimal solution.