Collective decision making in distributed systems

分布式系统中的集体决策

• 批准号: 2741510
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Bristol
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2022 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2741510
• 关键词: Collective; decision; making; distributed; systems

The project falls with the following EPSRC research areas: (1) ICT networks and distributed systems, and (2) Statistics and applied probability. Collective decision-making is widespread amongst biological organisms ranging from bacteria to social insects such as ants and bees (where colonies make collective decisions about foraging and nest sites) to human beings (from consumers to stock market traders). The need for collective decision-making also arises in engineered systems such as the Internet, and power and transport networks, which are composed of large numbers of autonomous entities that need to coordinate route choice or supply and demand decisions. Newer applications include swarm robotics and blockchain technologies. In this project, we will explore a number of simplified mathematical models of collective decision-making and study the emergent phenomena that arise when they are employed by large numbers of interacting autonomous agents. As an example, suppose agents receive independent private signals about a state of nature, and have a shared goal of inferring the true state of nature. The most efficient solution is to pool all the information and use it to make the inference, but the system may be too large for this to be feasible. Can agents cooperate using only limited communication with neighbours to achieve inference that is comparable to what could be achieved with full information sharing? We will address such questions using a combination of rigorous mathematical analysis and simulations. We will propose and analyse a variety of algorithms for collective decision-making problems with well-posed objectives.

该项目福尔斯以下EPSRC研究领域：（1）ICT网络和分布式系统，（2）统计和应用概率。集体决策在生物有机体中广泛存在，从细菌到蚂蚁和蜜蜂等社会性昆虫（群体对觅食和筑巢地点做出集体决策）到人类（从消费者到股票市场交易员）。在互联网、电力和运输网络等工程系统中也需要集体决策，这些系统由大量需要协调路线选择或供需决策的自治实体组成。较新的应用包括群机器人和区块链技术。在这个项目中，我们将探索一些简化的集体决策数学模型，并研究当它们被大量相互作用的自主代理使用时出现的现象。作为一个例子，假设代理接收关于自然状态的独立私人信号，并且具有推断真实自然状态的共同目标。最有效的解决方案是汇集所有信息并使用它来进行推理，但系统可能太大而不可行。代理人可以合作，只使用有限的通信与邻居，以实现推理，可以实现充分的信息共享？我们将结合严格的数学分析和模拟来解决这些问题。我们将提出和分析各种算法的集体决策问题的良定目标。