Smart Markets for Black-box Capacity Allocation

智能市场一词指的是一种市场设计，在这种市场设计中，清算必须通过解决满足技术约束的最优化问题来实现，否则无法通过更传统的市场结构(例如双边交易)来满足这些约束。智能市场中的所有交易都由负责清算的市场经理进行调解。例如电力市场(在考虑潮流的同时必须满足网络容量限制)和分配信道的频谱拍卖(其中需要组合优化以确定有效的分配)。这个项目解决了当必须参考非平凡计算模型的解决方案来确定给定分配配置文件的可行性时，设计智能市场的问题。由于这种模式对市场管理者来说并不透明，因此通常被称为“黑箱”模式。例如，该项目将专注于在非频分的信令技术下的频谱接入分配，这是这个问题的一个例子，因为只有通过参考考虑用户之间干扰影响的黑箱模型才能获得准确的通信容量确定。该项目将专注于智能市场的设计，以确保在关于用户愿意为容量付费的不完全信息下的黑箱容量的有效分配。所考虑的设计本质上是迭代的。其想法是允许(在每次迭代中)用户对可用资源进行某种形式的自我调度，然后对过剩产能进行黑箱评估，进而通知价格更新。一个关键的设计新奇之处在于使用了不同的时标来进行定价(快速)和运力分配(缓慢)调整。对每个用户的个性化奖励(以额外付款或转账的形式)保证，这是用户在整个过程中如实报告其需求的主要战略。另外还将考虑噪声黑箱模型和非凸可行域等几个研究方向。此外，还将考虑将智能市场设计应用于可再生能力水平较高的电力市场。如果成功，该项目将有助于确保现有资源的市场调度达到一定的可靠性目标，并具有高度间歇性的可再生产出。

The term smart market refers to a market design in which clearing must be implemented by solving an optimization problem satisfying technical constraints that cannot otherwise be met via more traditional market structures (e.g. bilateral trading). All trading in a smart market is intermediated by a market manager in charge of clearing. Examples include electricity markets (where network capacity constraints must be satisfied while taking into account power flow) and spectrum auctions for allocating channels (where combinatorial optimization is needed to identify an efficient allocation). This project addresses the problem of designing smart markets when the solution of a non-trivial computational model has to be consulted to determine the feasibility of a given allocation profile. Since such a model is not transparent to the market manager, it is often referred to as a "black-box" model. As an example, the project will focus on the allocation of spectrum access under signaling technologies other than frequency division, which is an instance of this problem because a precise determination of communication capacity can only be obtained by consulting black-box models that take into account the effects of interference amongst users.This project will focus on the design of smart markets to ensure the efficient allocation of black-box capacity under incomplete information regarding the users' willingness to pay for capacity. The designs considered are iterative in nature. The idea is to allow (at each iteration) a form of self-scheduling by users onto available resources followed by a black-box evaluation of excess capacity, which in turn informs price updates. A key design novelty pertains to the use of different time-scales for pricing (fast) vs. capacity allocation (slow) adjustments. Personalized incentives for each user (in the forms of additional payments or transfers) guarantee that it is a dominant strategy for users to truthfully report their demand throughout the process. Several additional research directions including noisy black-box model and non-convex feasible regions will be considered. Additionally, the application of the smart market designs to electricity markets with high levels of renewable capacity will be considered. If successful, the project will contribute to ensuring that the market dispatch of available resources meets a certain reliability target with highly intermittent nature of renewable output.