Matchmaking among minimal agents without a facilitator

Multi-Agent Systems are a promising way of dealing with large complex problems. However, it is not yet clear just how much complexity or pre-existing structure individual agents must have to allow them to work together effectively. In this paper, we ask to what extent agents with minimal resources, local communication and without a directory service can solve a consumer-provider matchmaking problem. We are interested in finding a solution that is massively scalable and can be used with resource poor agents in an open system. We create a model involving random search and a grouping procedure. Through simulation of this model, we show that peer-to-peer communication in a environment with multiple copies of randomly distributed like clients and providers is sufficient for most agents to discover the service consumers or providers they need to complete tasks. We simulate systems with between 500 and 32,000 agents, between 10 and 2000 categories of services, and with three to six service...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2001
• Where: AGENTS
• Authors: Elth Ogston, Stamatis Vassiliadis
• Keywords: AGENTS 2001, Extent Agents, Security Privacy, Service Categories, Structure Individual Agents