{"type":"ScholarlyArticle","title":"Optimal Anytime Coalition Structure Generation Utilizing Compact Solution Space Representation","authors":[{"name":"Redha Taguelmimt","slug":"redha-taguelmimt","given":"Redha","family":"Taguelmimt","affiliation":"Univ Lyon , UCBL , CNRS , INSA Lyon , Centrale Lyon , Univ Lyon 2 , LIRIS , UMR5205 , Lyon , France"},{"name":"Samir Aknine","slug":"samir-aknine","given":"Samir","family":"Aknine","affiliation":"Univ Lyon , UCBL , CNRS , INSA Lyon , Centrale Lyon , Univ Lyon 2 , LIRIS , UMR5205 , Lyon , France"},{"name":"Djamila Boukredera","slug":"djamila-boukredera","given":"Djamila","family":"Boukredera","affiliation":"Laboratory of Applied Mathematics , Faculty of Exact Sciences , University of Bejaia , Bejaia , Algeria"},{"name":"Narayan Changder","slug":"narayan-changder","given":"Narayan","family":"Changder","affiliation":"TCG Centres for Research and Education in Science and Technology , Kolkata , India"},{"name":"Tuomas Sandholm","slug":"tuomas-sandholm","given":"Tuomas","family":"Sandholm","affiliation":"Computer Science Department , Carnegie Mellon University , Pittsburgh , USA; Strategic Machine, Inc. 6 Strategy Robot, Inc. 7 Optimized Markets ,"}],"abstract":"Coalition formation is a central approach for multiagent coordination. A crucial part of coalition formation that is extensively studied in AI is coalition structure generation: partitioning agents into coalitions to maximize overall value. \r\nIn this paper, we propose a novel method for coalition structure generation by introducing a compact and efficient representation of coalition structures. Our representation partitions the solution space into smaller, more manageable subspaces that gather structures containing coalitions of specific sizes. Our proposed method combines two new algorithms, one which leverages our compact representation and a branch-and-bound technique to generate optimal coalition structures, and another that utilizes a preprocessing phase to identify the most promising sets of coalitions to evaluate. Additionally, we show how parts of the solution space can be gathered into groups to avoid their redundant evaluation and we investigate the computational gain that is achieved by avoiding that redundant processing. Through this approach, our algorithm is able to prune the solution space more efficiently. Our results show that the proposed algorithm is superior to prior state-of-the-art methods in generating optimal coalition structures under several value distributions.","doi":"10.24963/ijcai.2023/35","url":"https://ijcai.org/proceedings/2023/35","pdf":"https://ijcai.org/proceedings/2023/0035.pdf","markdown":"https://ijcai.org/proceedings/2023/35.md","bibtex":"https://ijcai.org/proceedings/2023/bibtex/35","volume":{"slug":"2023","title":"Proceedings of the Thirty-Second International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence","short_title":"IJCAI 2023","url":"https://ijcai.org/proceedings/2023/","year":2023,"location":"Macao, SAR","dates":"19-25 August 2023","editors":"Edith Elkind","isbn":"978-1-956792-03-4","publisher":"International Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence Organization","doi_prefix":"10.24963/ijcai.2023"},"section":"Agent-based and Multi-agent Systems","track":"Main Track","number":35,"pages":{"first":309,"last":316},"keywords":["Agent-based and Multi-agent Systems: MAS: Coordination and cooperation"],"videos":[],"references":[{"position":1,"raw":"[Changder et al., 2020] Narayan Changder, Samir Aknine, Sarvapali D Ramchurn, and Animesh Dutta. 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