An Improved Dynamic Programming algorithm for coalition structure generation

Talal Rahwan, Nicholas R. Jennings

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

Forming effective coalitions is a major research challenge in the field of multi-agent systems. Central to this endeavour is the problem of partitioning the set of agents into exhaustive and disjoint coalitions such that the social welfare is maximized. This coalition structure generation problem is extremely challenging due to the exponential number of partitions that need to be examined. Specifically, given n agents, there are O(nn) possible partitions. To date, the only algorithm that can find an optimal solution in O(3n) is the Dynamic Programming (DP) algorithm, due to Rothkopf et al. However, one of the main limitations of DP is that it requires a significant amount of memory. In this paper, we devise an Improved Dynamic Programming algorithm (IDP) that is proved to perform fewer operations than DP (e.g. 38.7% of the operations given 25 agents), and is shown to use only 33.3% of the memory in the best case, and 66.6% in the worst.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publication7th International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, AAMAS 2008
PublisherInternational Foundation for Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (IFAAMAS)
Pages1385-1388
Number of pages4
ISBN (Print)9781605604701
StatePublished - 2008
Event7th International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, AAMAS 2008 - Estoril, Portugal
Duration: May 12 2008May 16 2008

Publication series

NameProceedings of the International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, AAMAS
Volume3
ISSN (Print)1548-8403
ISSN (Electronic)1558-2914

Other

Other7th International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, AAMAS 2008
Country/TerritoryPortugal
CityEstoril
Period5/12/085/16/08

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Software
  • Control and Systems Engineering

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