Mertacor: a successful autonomous trading agent

In this paper we present the internal architecture and bidding mechanisms designed for Mertacor, a successful trading agent, which ended up first in the Classic Trading Agent Competition (TAC) of 2005. TAC provides a realistic benchmarking environment in which different trading agents compete with each other in order to best satisfy their clients' preferences and maximize their total profit. The "travel game" scenario of TAC involves three types of auctions; a) continuous one-sided that sell flight tickets, b) ascending multi-unit auctions for booking hotel rooms, and c) continuous double auctions for entertainment tickets. For each one of these types, we describe the techniques deployed by Mertacor. In flight auctions prices are updated according to a random walk process, thus the accurate prediction of the next update is not feasible. A key element of agent behavior in these auctions is its ability to accurately deduce the specific time in an auction, at which bidding...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2006
• Where: ATAL
• Authors: Panos Toulis, Dionisis Kehagias, Pericles A. Mitkas
• Keywords: ATAL 2006, Auctions, Flight Auctions, Intelligent Agents, Trading Agents