Distributed Constraint Satisfaction: Foundations of Cooperation in Multi-agent Systems

✍ Scribed by Makoto Yokoo (auth.)

• Publisher: Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
• Year: 2001
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 151
• Series: Springer Series on Agent Technology
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

When multiple agents are in a shared environment, there usually exist con­ straints among the possible actions of these agents. A distributed constraint satisfaction problem (distributed CSP) is a problem in which the goal is to find a consistent combination of actions that satisfies these inter-agent constraints. More specifically, a distributed CSP is a constraint satisfaction problem (CSP) in which multiple agents are involved. A constraint satisfaction problem is a problem in which the goal is to find a consistent assignment of values to variables. Even though the definition of a CSP is very simple, a surprisingly wide variety of artificial intelligence (AI) problems can be formalized as CSPs. Therefore, the research on CSPs has a long and distinguished history in AI (Mackworth 1992; Dechter 1992; Tsang 1993; Kumar 1992). A distributed CSP is a CSP in which variables and constraints are distributed among multiple autonomous agents. Various application problems in Multi-agent Systems (MAS) that are concerned with finding a consistent combination of agent actions can he formalized as dis­ tributed CSPs. Therefore, we can consid(~r distributed CSPs as a general framework for MAS, and algorithms for solving distributed CSPs as impor­ tant infrastructures for cooperation in MAS. This book gives an overview of the research on distributed CSPs, as well as introductory material on CSPs. In Chapter 1. we show the problem defi­ nition of normal, centralized CSPs and describe algorithms for solving CSPs.

✦ Table of Contents

Front Matter....Pages I-XVII
Constraint Satisfaction Problem....Pages 1-45
Distributed Constraint Satisfaction Problem....Pages 47-54
Asynchronous Backtracking....Pages 55-68
Asynchronous Weak-Commitment Search....Pages 69-79
Distributed Breakout....Pages 81-92
Distributed Consistency Algorithm....Pages 93-100
Handling Multiple Local Variables....Pages 101-111
Handling Over-Constrained Situations....Pages 113-132
Summary and Future Issues....Pages 133-135
Back Matter....Pages 137-141

✦ Subjects

Artificial Intelligence (incl. Robotics); Algorithm Analysis and Problem Complexity; Computer Communication Networks; Business Information Systems