370 research outputs found
Hedonic Coalition Formation for Distributed Task Allocation among Wireless Agents
Autonomous wireless agents such as unmanned aerial vehicles or mobile base
stations present a great potential for deployment in next-generation wireless
networks. While current literature has been mainly focused on the use of agents
within robotics or software applications, we propose a novel usage model for
self-organizing agents suited to wireless networks. In the proposed model, a
number of agents are required to collect data from several arbitrarily located
tasks. Each task represents a queue of packets that require collection and
subsequent wireless transmission by the agents to a central receiver. The
problem is modeled as a hedonic coalition formation game between the agents and
the tasks that interact in order to form disjoint coalitions. Each formed
coalition is modeled as a polling system consisting of a number of agents which
move between the different tasks present in the coalition, collect and transmit
the packets. Within each coalition, some agents can also take the role of a
relay for improving the packet success rate of the transmission. The proposed
algorithm allows the tasks and the agents to take distributed decisions to join
or leave a coalition, based on the achieved benefit in terms of effective
throughput, and the cost in terms of delay. As a result of these decisions, the
agents and tasks structure themselves into independent disjoint coalitions
which constitute a Nash-stable network partition. Moreover, the proposed
algorithm allows the agents and tasks to adapt the topology to environmental
changes such as the arrival/removal of tasks or the mobility of the tasks.
Simulation results show how the proposed algorithm improves the performance, in
terms of average player (agent or task) payoff, of at least 30.26% (for a
network of 5 agents with up to 25 tasks) relatively to a scheme that allocates
nearby tasks equally among agents.Comment: to appear, IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computin
Maximizing Profit in Green Cellular Networks through Collaborative Games
In this paper, we deal with the problem of maximizing the profit of Network
Operators (NOs) of green cellular networks in situations where
Quality-of-Service (QoS) guarantees must be ensured to users, and Base Stations
(BSs) can be shared among different operators. We show that if NOs cooperate
among them, by mutually sharing their users and BSs, then each one of them can
improve its net profit. By using a game-theoretic framework, we study the
problem of forming stable coalitions among NOs. Furthermore, we propose a
mathematical optimization model to allocate users to a set of BSs, in order to
reduce costs and, at the same time, to meet user QoS for NOs inside the same
coalition. Based on this, we propose an algorithm, based on cooperative game
theory, that enables each operator to decide with whom to cooperate in order to
maximize its profit. This algorithms adopts a distributed approach in which
each NO autonomously makes its own decisions, and where the best solution
arises without the need to synchronize them or to resort to a trusted third
party. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated through a
thorough experimental evaluation considering real-world traffic traces, and a
set of realistic scenarios. The results we obtain indicate that our algorithm
allows a population of NOs to significantly improve their profits thanks to the
combination of energy reduction and satisfaction of QoS requirements.Comment: Added publisher info and citation notic
Hedonic Coalition Formation for Task Allocation with Heterogeneous Robots
Tasks in the real world are complex in nature and often require multiple robots to collaborate in order to be accomplished. However, multiple robots with the same set of sensors working together might not be the optimal solution. In many cases a task might require different sensory inputs and outputs. However, allocating a large variety of sensors on each robot is not a cost-effective solution. As such, robots with different attributes must be considered. In this thesis we study the coalition formation problem for task allocation with multiple heterogeneous (equipped with a different set of sensors) robots. The proposed solution is implemented utilizing a Hedonic Coalition Formation strategy, rooted in game theory, coupled with bipartite graph matching. Our proposed algorithm aims to minimize the total cost of the formed coalitions and to maximize the matching between the required and the allocated types of robots to the tasks. Simulation results show that it produces near-optimal solutions (up to 94%) in a negligible amount of time (0:19 ms. with 100 robots and 10 tasks)
A Game-Theoretic Approach to Coalition Formation in Fog Provider Federations
In this paper we deal with the problem of making a set of Fog Infrastructure Providers (FIPs) increase their profits when allocating their resources to process the data generated by IoT applications that need to meet specific QoS targets in face of time-varying workloads. We show that if FIPs cooperate among them, by mutually sharing their workloads and resources, then each one of them can improve its net profit. By using a game-theoretic framework, we study the problem of forming stable coalitions among FIPs. Furthermore, we propose a mathematical optimization model for profit maximization to allocate IoT applications to a set of FIPs, in order to reduce costs and, at the same time, to meet the corresponding QoS targets. Based on this, we propose an algorithm, based on cooperative game theory, that enables each FIP to decide with whom to cooperate in order to increase its profits. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated through an experimental evaluation considering various workload intensities. The results we obtain from these experiments show the ability of our algorithm to form coalitions of FIPs that are stable and profitable in all the scenarios we consider
Anonymous hedonic game for task allocation in a large-scale multiple agent system
This paper proposes a novel game-theoretical autonomous decision-making framework to address a task allocation problem for a swarm of multiple agents. We consider cooperation of self-interested agents, and show that our proposed decentralized algorithm guarantees convergence of agents with social inhibition to a Nash stable partition (i.e., social agreement) within polynomial time. The algorithm is simple and executable based on local interactions with neighbor agents under a strongly connected communication network and even in asynchronous environments. We analytically present a mathematical formulation for computing the lower bound of suboptimality of the outcome, and additionally show that at least 50% of suboptimality can be guaranteed if social utilities are nondecreasing functions with respect to the number of coworking agents. The results of numerical experiments confirm that the proposed framework is scalable, fast adaptable against dynamical environments, and robust even in a realistic situation
Role Based Hedonic Games
In the hedonic coalition formation game model Roles Based Hedonic Games (RBHG), agents view teams as compositions of available roles. An agent\u27s utility for a partition is based upon which role she fulfills within the coalition and which additional roles are being fulfilled within the coalition. I consider optimization and stability problems for settings with variable power on the part of the central authority and on the part of the agents. I prove several of these problems to be NP-complete or coNP-complete. I introduce heuristic methods for approximating solutions for a variety of these hard problems. I validate heuristics on real-world data scraped from League of Legends games
The Viability of Domain Constrained Coalition Formation for Robotic Collectives
Applications, such as military and disaster response, can benefit from
robotic collectives' ability to perform multiple cooperative tasks (e.g.,
surveillance, damage assessments) efficiently across a large spatial area.
Coalition formation algorithms can potentially facilitate collective robots'
assignment to appropriate task teams; however, most coalition formation
algorithms were designed for smaller multiple robot systems (i.e., 2-50
robots). Collectives' scale and domain-relevant constraints (i.e.,
distribution, near real-time, minimal communication) make coalition formation
more challenging. This manuscript identifies the challenges inherent to
designing coalition formation algorithms for very large collectives (e.g., 1000
robots). A survey of multiple robot coalition formation algorithms finds that
most are unable to transfer directly to collectives, due to the identified
system differences; however, auctions and hedonic games may be the most
transferable. A simulation-based evaluation of three auction and hedonic game
algorithms, applied to homogeneous and heterogeneous collectives, demonstrates
that there are collective compositions for which no existing algorithm is
viable; however, the experimental results and literature survey suggest paths
forward.Comment: 46 pages, 9 figures, Swarm Intelligence (under review
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