arXiv subjects

Donya G. Dobakhshari

Publications and source records attributed to Donya G. Dobakhshari.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2020

Optimal Contract Design for Incentive-Based Demand Response

We design an optimal contract between a demand response aggregator (DRA) and a customer for incentive-based demand response. We consider a setting in which the customer is asked to reduce her consumption by the DRA and she is compensated for this reduction. However, since the DRA must supply the customer with as much power as she desires, a strategic customer can temporarily increase her base load to report a larger reduction as a part of the demand response event. The DRA wishes to incentivize the customer both to make the maximal effort in reducing the load and to not falsify the base load. We model the problem of designing the contract by the DRA for the customer as a management contract design problem and present a solution. The optimal contract consists of two parts: a part that depends on (the possibly inflated) load reduction as measured and another that provides a share of the profit that ensues to the DRA through the demand response event to the customer.

math.OC↗

arXiv2020

A Game-Theoretic Approach to a Task Delegation Problem

We study a setting in which a principal selects an agent to execute a collection of tasks according to a specified priority sequence. Agents, however, have their own individual priority sequences according to which they wish to execute the tasks. There is information asymmetry since each priority sequence is private knowledge for the individual agent. We design a mechanism for selecting the agent and incentivizing the selected agent to realize a priority sequence for executing the tasks that achieves socially optimal performance. Our proposed mechanism consists of two parts. First, the principal runs an auction to select an agent to allocate tasks to with minimum declared priority sequence misalignment. Then, the principal rewards the agent according to the realized priority sequence with which the tasks were performed. We show that the proposed mechanism is individually rational and incentive compatible. Further, it is also socially optimal for the case of linear cost of priority sequence modification for the agents.

cs.GT↗

arXiv2017

A Reputation-Based Contract for Repeated Crowdsensing with Costly Verification

We study a setup in which a system operator hires a sensor to exert costly effort to collect accurate measurements of a value of interest over time. At each time, the sensor is asked to report his observation to the operator, and is compensated based on the accuracy of this observation. Since both the effort and observation are private information for the sensor, a naive payment scheme which compensates the sensor based only on his self-reported values will lead to both shirking and falsification of outcomes by the sensor. We consider the problem of designing an appropriate compensation scheme to incentivize the sensor to at once exert costly effort and truthfully reveal the resulting observation. To this end, we formulate the problem as a repeated game and propose a compensation scheme that employs stochastic verification by the operator coupled with a system of assigning reputation to the sensor. In particular, our proposed payment scheme compensates the sensor based on both the effort in the current period as well as the history of past behavior. We show that by using past behavior in determining present payments, the operator can both incentivize higher effort as well as more frequent truthtelling by the sensor and decrease the required verification frequency.

math.OC↗