A Multi-Agent Approach for Solving Optimization Problems involving Expensive Resources

In this paper, we propose a multi-agent approach for solving a class of optimization problems involving expensive resources, where monolithic local search schemes perform miserably. More specifically, we study the class of bin-packing problems. Under our proposed Fine-Grained Agent System scheme, ra...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: LAU, Hoong Chuin, WANG, H.
Format: text
Language:English
Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2005
Subjects:
Online Access:https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sis_research/1097
https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/sis_research/article/2096/viewcontent/SAC2005.pdf
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Institution: Singapore Management University
Language: English
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Summary:In this paper, we propose a multi-agent approach for solving a class of optimization problems involving expensive resources, where monolithic local search schemes perform miserably. More specifically, we study the class of bin-packing problems. Under our proposed Fine-Grained Agent System scheme, rational agents work both collaboratively and selfishly based on local search and mimic physics-motivated systems. We apply our approach to a generalization of bin-packing - the Inventory Routing Problem with Time Windows - which is an important logistics problem, and demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of our approach.