A study of coordinated dynamic market-based task assignment in massively multi-agent systems

Abstract

This paper studies market-based mechanisms for coordinated dynamic task assignment in large-scale agent systems carrying out search and rescue missions. Specifically, the effect of different auction mechanisms and swapping are studied. The paper describes results from a large number of simulations.The information available to agents and their bidding strategies are used as simulation parameters. The simulations provide insight about the interaction between the strategy of individual agents and the market mechanism. Performance is evaluated using several metrics. Some of the results include: limiting information may improve performance, different utility functions may affect the performance in non-uniform ways, and swapping may help improve the efficiency of assignments in dynamic environments. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.