Adaptive Bi-directional Consensus Reaching Model with Social Influence Evolution for Large-Scale Group Decision-Making with an Application to Observation Scheme Selection

The remote sensing satellite observation process involves multiple stakeholders and significant costs, so selecting an appropriate observation scheme and reaching an agreement on the chosen scheme among the evaluators/stakeholders is essential. From this perspective, the observation scheme selection problem can be viewed as a large-scale group decision-making (LSGDM) problem, challenging due to its complex group composition and the high consensus level required. Accordingly, this paper investigates an adaptive bi-directional consensus model that incorporates the evolution of social influence to address the LSGDM problem. Firstly, the dual-attribute affinity propagation algorithm is employed to divide the large-group into manageable subgroups. Secondly, the social influence evolution model is established, where evaluators’ social influences are determined by considering their opinion similarity and trust level, and subgroups’ social influences are updated by measuring their decision risk. Thirdly, the bi-directional feedback mechanism is designed to adaptively generate adjustment strategies corresponding to different scenarios based on the evolution model. Finally, an observation scheme selection case is analyzed using the proposal to demonstrate its practicality. During the process of remote sensing satellite observation, the selection of an appropriate observation scheme can optimize the utilization of existing satellite resources and ensure the quality of satellite observation services, thereby better meeting the demands of diverse application areas such as environmental monitoring, disaster management, and urban planning.