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European Conference on Multi-Agent Systems

EUMAS 2014: Multi-Agent Systems pp 85–100Cite as

Computing Coalitions in Multiagent Systems: A Contextual Reasoning Approach

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 8953))

Abstract

In multiagent systems, agents often have to rely on other agents to reach their goals, for example when they lack a needed resource or do not have the capability to perform a required action. Agents therefore need to cooperate. Some of the questions then raised, such as, which agent to cooperate with, are addressed in the field of coalition formation. In this paper we go further and first, address the question of how to compute the solution space for the formation of coalitions using a contextual reasoning approach. We model agents as contexts in Multi-Context Systems (MCS) and dependence relations among agents as bridge rules. We then systematically compute all potential coalitions using algorithms for MCS equilibria. Finally, given a set of functional and non-functional requirements, we propose ways to select the best solutions. We illustrate our approach with an example from robotics.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    http://www.kr.tuwien.ac.at/research/systems/dmcs/.

  2. 2.

    http://www.kr.tuwien.ac.at/research/systems/mcsie/.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Information Studies, UCL, London, UK

    Antonis Bikakis

  2. SnT and CSC, University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg City, Luxembourg

    Patrice Caire

Authors
  1. Antonis Bikakis
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  2. Patrice Caire
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Correspondence to Antonis Bikakis .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands

    Nils Bulling

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Bikakis, A., Caire, P. (2015). Computing Coalitions in Multiagent Systems: A Contextual Reasoning Approach. In: Bulling, N. (eds) Multi-Agent Systems. EUMAS 2014. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 8953. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17130-2_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17130-2_6

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-17130-2

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