Decentralised coordination of low-power embedded devices using the max-sum algorithm

This paper considers the problem of performing decentralised coordination of low-power embedded devices (as is required within many environmental sensing and surveillance applications). Specifically, we address the generic problem of maximising social welfare within a group of interacting agents. We propose a novel representation of the problem, as a cyclic bipartite factor graph, composed of variable and function nodes (representing the agents' states and utilities respectively). We show that such representation allows us to use an extension of the max-sum algorithm to generate approximate solutions to this global optimisation problem through local decentralised message passing. We empirically evaluate this approach on a canonical coordination problem (graph colouring), and benchmark it against state of the art approximate and complete algorithms (DSA and DPOP). We show that our approach is robust to lossy communication, that it generates solutions closer to those of DPOP than D...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2008
• Where: ATAL
• Authors: Alessandro Farinelli, Alex Rogers, Adrian Petcu, Nicholas R. Jennings
• Keywords: ATAL 2008, Canonical Coordination Problem, Global Optimisation Problem, Intelligent Agents, Low-power Embedded Devices