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Publikation

Risk-Bounded Formation of Fuzzy Coalitions Among Service Agents

Bastian Blankenburg; M. He; Matthias Klusch; N.R. Jennings
In: Proceedings of the 10th International Workshop on Cooperative Information Agents. International Workshop on Cooperative Information Agents (CIA-2006), 10th International Workshop on Cooperative Information Agents, September 11-13, Edinburgh, United Kingdom, Pages 332-346, Springer-Verlag, 2006.

Zusammenfassung

Cooperative autonomous agents form coalitions in order ro share and combine resources and services to efficiently respond to market demands. With the variety of resources and services provided online today, there is a need for stable and flexible techniques to support the automation of agent coalition formation in this context. This paper describes an approach to the problem based on fuzzy coalitions. Compared with a classic cooperative game with crisp coalitions (where each agent is a full member of exactly one coalition), an agent can participate in multiple coalitions with varying degrees of involvement. This gives the agent more freedom and flexibility, allowing them to make full use of their resources, thus maximising utility, even if only comparatively small coalitions are formed. An important aspect of our approach is that the agents can control and bound the risk caused by the possible failure or default of some partner agents by spreading their involvement in diverse coalitions.