A Realistic Approach to Solve the Nash Welfare

The multi-agent resource allocation problem is the negotiation of a set of resources among a population of agents, in order to maximize a social welfare function. The purpose of this study is the definition of the agent behavior which leads, if possible, to an optimal resource allocation at the end of the negotiation process as an emergent phenomenon. This process can be based on any kind of contact networks. Our study focuses on a specific notion: the Nash product, which has not the drawbacks of the other widely used notions. However, centralized approaches cannot handle large instances, since the social function is not linear. After a study of different bilateral transaction types, we underline the most efficient negotiation policy in order to solve the multi-agent resource allocation problem with the Nash product and provide an adaptive, scalable and anytime algorithm.

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