Effects of Periodic Communication on Distributed Decision-Making

Abstmct A set of performance scenarios as a function of periodic communication is hypothes ized and lea& to an analysis of optimal communication rates. In general, we expect that performance o v e r time follows certain patterns with respect to the reception of messages regarding global state. To explore the hypothesis, we present a model of distributed game automata which make decisions probabilistically concerning group, or coalition, formation. The uncertainty in the players’ coalition strategies can be reduced by increasing communication but at the expense of more overhead. In a job schedul ing application, the players make good decisions concerning group formation only if there is sufficient communication. The results agree w i t h the hypothes ized trade-off of decision qual i ty versus communication overhead.