Decentralized cooperative auction for multiple agent task allocation using synchronized random number generators
William D. Palmer, Marc Kirschenbaum, J.P. Murton, Katarzyna Zając, Michael A. Kovacina, Ravi Vaidyanathan · 2004
A collection of agents, faced with multiple tasks to perform, must effectively map agents to tasks in order to perform the tasks quickly with limited wasted resources. We propose a decentralized control algorithm based on synchronized random number generators to enact a cooperative task auction among the agents. The algorithm finds probabilistically reasonable solutions in few rounds of bidding. Additionally, as the length of the auction increases, the expectation of a better solution increases. This algorithm is not intended to find the optimal solution; it finds a good solution with less computation and communication.