Laboratory assignment method based on negotiations among agents

摘要

Laboratory assignment requires each of the students to be assigned to one of the laboratories according to some constraints. In the past, a number of different methods have been proposed as ways of adjusting laboratory assignments, however, no one method has become established. In this paper, we propose a laboratory assignment method based on agent negotiations, in which agents exchange information among themselves and make adjustments to laboratory assignments. In order to demonstrate the effectiveness of this method, we conducted comparison simulation tests against a laboratory assignment algorithm as an extension of the Stable Marriage Problem (the NKO method), which has long been recognized as an effective assignment method. These tests resulted in a higher evaluation for the agent negotiation method than in conventional methods when more realistic cases were assumed, thus confirming the effectiveness of the agent negotiation method.