A model-based online mechanism with pre-commitment and its application to electric vehicle charging
OA Location
Author(s)
Stein, S
Gerding, E
Robu, V
Jennings, N
Type
Conference Paper
Abstract
We introduce a novel online mechanism that schedules the allocation of an expiring and continuously-produced resource to self-interested agents with private preferences. A key application of our mechanism is the charging of pure electric vehicles, where owners arrive dynamically over time, and each owner requires a minimum amount of charge by its departure to complete its next trip. To truthfully elicit the agents’ preferences in this setting, we introduce the new concept of pre-commitment: Whenever an agent is selected, our mechanism pre-commits to charging the vehicle by its reported departure time, but maintains flexibility about when the charging takes place and at what rate. Furthermore, to make effective allocation decisions we use a model-based approach by modifying Consensus, a well-known online optimisation algorithm. We show that our pre-commitment mechanism with modified Consensus incentivises truthful reporting. Furthermore, through simulations based on real-world data, we show empirically that the average utility achieved by our mechanism is 93% or more of the offline optimal.
Date Issued
2012-06-04
Date Acceptance
2012-06-04
Citation
Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS 2012), 2012, pp.669-676
ISBN
978-0-9817381-2-3
Publisher
International Foundation for Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems
Start Page
669
End Page
676
Journal / Book Title
Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS 2012)
Copyright Statement
© 2012 International Foundation for Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems
Identifier
http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/273082/
Source
11th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS 2012)
Publication Status
Published
Start Date
2012-06-04
Finish Date
2012-06-08
Coverage Spatial
Valencia, Spain