Multi-auction Approach for Solving Task Allocation Problem

Chi-Kong Chan, Ho-fung Leung

Abstract: Request for Proposal (RFP) problem is a type of task allocation problem where task managers need to recruit service provider agents to handle complex tasks composed of multiple sub-tasks, with the objective being to assign each sub-task to a capable agent while keeping the cost as low as possible. Most existing approaches either involve centralized algorithms or require each agent’s cost for doing each sub-task to be known publicly beforehand, or attempt to force the agents to disclose such information by means of truth-telling mechanism, which is not practical in many problems where such information is sensitive and private. In this paper, we present an efficient multi-auction based mechanism that can produce near-optimal solutions without violating the privacy of the participating agents. By including an extra verification step after each bid, we can guarantee convergence to a solution while achieving optimal results in over 97% of the times in a series of experiment.