A Tool for Coordinating Autonomous Agents with Conflicting Goals

First International Conference on Multiagent Systems

Volume

First International Conference on Multiagent Systems

Contents

We present an implementation of a suggested solution to a problem of high relevance to multi-agent systems: that of conflicting information distributed over cooperating agents. To this end, we use a theory for the treatment of problems arising as a decision making agent faces a situation involving a choice between a finite set of strategies, having access to a finite set of autonomous agents reporting their opinions. Each of these agents may itself play the part of decision making agent, and the theory is independent of whether there is a specific coordinating agent or not. Any decision making agent is allowed to assign different credibilities to the statements made by the other autonomous agents. The theory admits the representation of vague and numerically imprecise information, and the evaluation results in a set of admissible strategies by using criteria conforming to classical statistical theory. The admissible strategies can be further investigated with respect to strength and also with respect to the range of values consistent with the given domain that makes them admissible.