On k-optimal distributed constraint optimization algorithms: new bounds and algorithms
Emma Bowring, Jonathan P. Pearce, Christopher Portway, Manish Jain, Milind Tambe · 2008
Distributed constraint optimization (DCOP) is a promising approach to coordination, scheduling and task allocation in multi agent networks. In large-scale or low-bandwidth networks, finding the global optimum is often impractical. K-optimality is a promising new approach: for the first time it provides us a set of locally optimal algorithms with quality guarantees as a fraction of global optimum. Unfortunately, previous work in k-optimality did not address domains where we may have prior knowledge of reward structure; and it failed to provide quality guarantees or algorithms for domains with hard constraints (such as agents ’ local resource constraints). This paper addresses these shortcomings with three key contributions. It provides: (i) improved lower-bounds on k-optima quality incorporating available prior knowledge of reward structure; (ii) lower bounds on k-optima quality for problems with hard constraints; and (iii) k-optimal algorithms for solving DCOPs with hard constraints and detailed experimental results on large-scale networks.