scholarly journals A unifying framework for iterative approximate best-response algorithms for distributed constraint optimization problems

2011 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 411-444 ◽  
Author(s):  
Archie C. Chapman ◽  
Alex Rogers ◽  
Nicholas R. Jennings ◽  
David S. Leslie
Keyword(s):  
Computer Science ◽  
Optimization Problems ◽  
Potential Games ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Stochastic Algorithm ◽  
Constraint Optimization ◽  
Distributed Constraint Optimization ◽  
Best Response ◽  
Game Theoretic ◽  
Constraint Optimization Problems

AbstractDistributed constraint optimization problems (DCOPs) are important in many areas of computer science and optimization. In a DCOP, each variable is controlled by one of many autonomous agents, who together have the joint goal of maximizing a global objective function. A wide variety of techniques have been explored to solve such problems, and here we focus on one of the main families, namely iterative approximate best-response algorithms used as local search algorithms for DCOPs. We define these algorithms as those in which, at each iteration, agents communicate only the states of the variables under their control to their neighbours on the constraint graph, and that reason about their next state based on the messages received from their neighbours. These algorithms include the distributed stochastic algorithm and stochastic coordination algorithms, the maximum-gain messaging algorithms, the families of fictitious play and adaptive play algorithms, and algorithms that use regret-based heuristics. This family of algorithms is commonly employed in real-world systems, as they can be used in domains where communication is difficult or costly, where it is appropriate to trade timeliness off against optimality, or where hardware limitations render complete or more computationally intensive algorithms unusable. However, until now, no overarching framework has existed for analyzing this broad family of algorithms, resulting in similar and overlapping work being published independently in several different literatures. The main contribution of this paper, then, is the development of a unified analytical framework for studying such algorithms. This framework is built on our insight that when formulated as non-cooperative games, DCOPs form a subset of the class of potential games. This result allows us to prove convergence properties of iterative approximate best-response algorithms developed in the computer science literature using game-theoretic methods (which also shows that such algorithms can also be applied to the more general problem of finding Nash equilibria in potential games), and, conversely, also allows us to show that many game-theoretic algorithms can be used to solve DCOPs. By so doing, our framework can assist system designers by making the pros and cons of, and the synergies between, the various iterative approximate best-response DCOP algorithm components clear.

scholarly journals Beyond Trees: Analysis and Convergence of Belief Propagation in Graphs with Multiple Cycles

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (05) ◽  
pp. 7333-7340
Author(s):  
Roie Zivan ◽  
Omer Lev ◽  
Rotem Galiki
Keyword(s):  
Graphical Models ◽  
Belief Propagation ◽  
Optimization Problems ◽  
Optimal Solution ◽  
Damping Factor ◽  
Constraint Optimization ◽  
Single Cycle ◽  
Distributed Constraint Optimization ◽  
Multiple Cycles ◽  
Constraint Optimization Problems

Belief propagation, an algorithm for solving problems represented by graphical models, has long been known to converge to the optimal solution when the graph is a tree. When the graph representing the problem includes a single cycle, the algorithm either converges to the optimal solution or performs periodic oscillations. While the conditions that trigger these two behaviors have been established, the question regarding the convergence and divergence of the algorithm on graphs that include more than one cycle is still open.Focusing on Max-sum, the version of belief propagation for solving distributed constraint optimization problems (DCOPs), we extend the theory on the behavior of belief propagation in general – and Max-sum specifically – when solving problems represented by graphs with multiple cycles. This includes: 1) Generalizing the results obtained for graphs with a single cycle to graphs with multiple cycles, by using backtrack cost trees (BCT). 2) Proving that when the algorithm is applied to adjacent symmetric cycles, the use of a large enough damping factor guarantees convergence to the optimal solution.

scholarly journals Multi-Context System for Optimization Problems

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 2929-2937
Author(s):  
Tiep Le ◽  
Tran Cao Son ◽  
Enrico Pontelli
Keyword(s):  
Complexity Analysis ◽  
Optimization Problems ◽  
Distributed Optimization ◽  
Multi Agent System ◽  
Constraint Optimization ◽  
Agent System ◽  
Distributed Constraint Optimization ◽  
Multi Agent ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Constraint Optimization Problems

This paper proposes Multi-context System for Optimization Problems (MCS-OP) by introducing conditional costassignment bridge rules to Multi-context Systems (MCS). This novel feature facilitates the definition of a preorder among equilibria, based on the total incurred cost of applied bridge rules. As an application of MCS-OP, the paper describes how MCS-OP can be used in modeling Distributed Constraint Optimization Problems (DCOP), a prominent class of distributed optimization problems that is frequently employed in multi-agent system (MAS) research. The paper shows, by means of an example, that MCS-OP is more expressive than DCOP, and hence, could potentially be useful in modeling distributed optimization problems which cannot be easily dealt with using DCOPs. It also contains a complexity analysis of MCS-OP.

scholarly journals A Particle Swarm Based Algorithm for Functional Distributed Constraint Optimization Problems

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (05) ◽  
pp. 7111-7118
Author(s):  
Moumita Choudhury ◽  
Saaduddin Mahmud ◽  
Md. Mosaddek Khan
Keyword(s):  
Optimization Problems ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Particle Swarm ◽  
Continuous Optimization ◽  
Continuous Variables ◽  
Constraint Optimization ◽  
Solution Quality ◽  
Distributed Constraint Optimization ◽  
Continuous Optimization Problems ◽  
Constraint Optimization Problems

Distributed Constraint Optimization Problems (DCOPs) are a widely studied constraint handling framework. The objective of a DCOP algorithm is to optimize a global objective function that can be described as the aggregation of several distributed constraint cost functions. In a DCOP, each of these functions is defined by a set of discrete variables. However, in many applications, such as target tracking or sleep scheduling in sensor networks, continuous valued variables are more suited than the discrete ones. Considering this, Functional DCOPs (F-DCOPs) have been proposed that can explicitly model a problem containing continuous variables. Nevertheless, state-of-the-art F-DCOPs approaches experience onerous memory or computation overhead. To address this issue, we propose a new F-DCOP algorithm, namely Particle Swarm based F-DCOP (PFD), which is inspired by a meta-heuristic, Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO). Although it has been successfully applied to many continuous optimization problems, the potential of PSO has not been utilized in F-DCOPs. To be exact, PFD devises a distributed method of solution construction while significantly reducing the computation and memory requirements. Moreover, we theoretically prove that PFD is an anytime algorithm. Finally, our empirical results indicate that PFD outperforms the state-of-the-art approaches in terms of solution quality and computation overhead.

scholarly journals AsymDPOP: Complete Inference for Asymmetric Distributed Constraint Optimization Problems

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yanchen Deng ◽  
Ziyu Chen ◽  
Dingding Chen ◽  
Wenxin Zhang ◽  
Xingqiong Jiang
Keyword(s):  
Optimization Problems ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Empirical Evaluation ◽  
The State ◽  
Constraint Optimization ◽  
Memory Consumption ◽  
Distributed Constraint Optimization ◽  
Constraint Optimization Problems

Asymmetric distributed constraint optimization problems (ADCOPs) are an emerging model for coordinating agents with personal preferences. However, the existing inference-based complete algorithms which use local eliminations cannot be applied to ADCOPs, as the parent agents are required to transfer their private functions to their children. Rather than disclosing private functions explicitly to facilitate local eliminations, we solve the problem by enforcing delayed eliminations and propose AsymDPOP, the first inference-based complete algorithm for ADCOPs. To solve the severe scalability problems incurred by delayed eliminations, we propose to reduce the memory consumption by propagating a set of smaller utility tables instead of a joint utility table, and to reduce the computation efforts by sequential optimizations instead of joint optimizations. The empirical evaluation indicates that AsymDPOP significantly outperforms the state-of-the-art, as well as the vanilla DPOP with PEAV formulation.

scholarly journals Distributed Constraint Optimization Problems and Applications: A Survey

2018 ◽  
Vol 61 ◽  
pp. 623-698 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ferdinando Fioretto ◽  
Enrico Pontelli ◽  
William Yeoh
Keyword(s):  
Autonomous Agents ◽  
Optimization Problems ◽  
Constraint Optimization ◽  
Uncertain Environments ◽  
Distributed Constraint Optimization ◽  
Agent Model ◽  
Autonomous Behavior ◽  
Multi Agent ◽  
Constraint Optimization Problems

The field of multi-agent system (MAS) is an active area of research within artificial intelligence, with an increasingly important impact in industrial and other real-world applications. In a MAS, autonomous agents interact to pursue personal interests and/or to achieve common objectives. Distributed Constraint Optimization Problems (DCOPs) have emerged as a prominent agent model to govern the agents' autonomous behavior, where both algorithms and communication models are driven by the structure of the specific problem. During the last decade, several extensions to the DCOP model have been proposed to enable support of MAS in complex, real-time, and uncertain environments. This survey provides an overview of the DCOP model, offering a classification of its multiple extensions and addressing both resolution methods and applications that find a natural mapping within each class of DCOPs. The proposed classification suggests several future perspectives for DCOP extensions and identifies challenges in the design of efficient resolution algorithms, possibly through the adaptation of strategies from different areas.

scholarly journals Neural Regret-Matching for Distributed Constraint Optimization Problems

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yanchen Deng ◽  
Runsheng Yu ◽  
Xinrun Wang ◽  
Bo An
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Optimization Problems ◽  
Scale Up ◽  
Constraint Optimization ◽  
Confidence Bounds ◽  
Distributed Constraint Optimization ◽  
Multi Agent ◽  
Constraint Optimization Problems ◽  
Regret Bound ◽  
Agent Coordination

Distributed constraint optimization problems (DCOPs) are a powerful model for multi-agent coordination and optimization, where information and controls are distributed among multiple agents by nature. Sampling-based algorithms are important incomplete techniques for solving medium-scale DCOPs. However, they use tables to exactly store all the information (e.g., costs, confidence bounds) to facilitate sampling, which limits their scalability. This paper tackles the limitation by incorporating deep neural networks in solving DCOPs for the first time and presents a neural-based sampling scheme built upon regret-matching. In the algorithm, each agent trains a neural network to approximate the regret related to its local problem and performs sampling according to the estimated regret. Furthermore, to ensure exploration we propose a regret rounding scheme that rounds small regret values to positive numbers. We theoretically show the regret bound of our algorithm and extensive evaluations indicate that our algorithm can scale up to large-scale DCOPs and significantly outperform the state-of-the-art methods.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document