Autonomous trading agent design in the presence of tradeoffs

In previous work we have introduced a principled methodology for systematically exploring the space of bidding strategies when agents participate in a significant number of simultaneous auctions, and thus finding an analytical solution is not possible. We decompose the problem into sub-problems and then use rigorous experimentation to determine the best partial strategies. In this paper we clarify and extend our methodology. We discuss our agent design for TAC 2003 and furthermore the changes to our agent as a result of the rule changes in TAC 2004. We also present a “full” set of experiments for determining an overall “optimal” strategy in the 2003 and 2004 Trading Agent Competition (TAC). Our agent was created by using the results of this methodology and has consistently been the top-scoring agent in several rounds of the TAC competition. Keywords agent-mediated electronic commerce, bidding agents, determining bidding strategies, electronic marketplaces, simultaneous aucti...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2005
• Where: ACMICEC
• Authors: Ioannis A. Vetsikas, Bart Selman
• Keywords: ACMICEC 2005, Bidding Strategies, Simultaneous Auctions, Trading Agent Competition