Resource Constrained Distributed Constraint Optimization with Virtual Variables

Cooperative problem solving with resource constraints are important in practical multi-agent systems. Resource constraints are necessary to handle practical problems including distributed task scheduling with limited resource availability. A dedicated framework called Resource Constrained DCOP (RCDCOP) has recently been proposed. RCDCOP models objective functions and resource constraints separately. A resource constraint is an n-ary constraint that represents the limit on the number of resources of a given type available to agents. Previous research addressing RCDCOPs employs the Adopt algorithm, which is an efficient solver for DCOPs. An important graph structure for Adopt is the pseudo-tree for constraint networks. A pseudo-tree implies a partial ordering of variables. In this variable ordering, n-ary constrained variables are placed on a single path of the tree. Therefore, resource constraints that have large arity augment the depth of the pseudo-tree. This also reduces the paralle...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2008
• Where: AAAI
• Authors: Toshihiro Matsui, Hiroshi Matsuo, Marius Silaghi, Katsutoshi Hirayama, Makoto Yokoo
• Keywords: AAAI 2008, Adopt Algorithm, Intelligent Agents, Resource Constraints, Virtual Variables