Multiagent Systems

Course Overview and

Introduction

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 Course Overview
 Course Description:
Multiagent systems has emerged as an important research area with
applications in many fields of computer science, including artificial
intelligence, e-commerce, sensor networks, distributed computing and
information retrieval, information security, and robotics. In multiagent
systems, multiple autonomous entities with their own objectives have
to interact and make decisions. This course explores techniques for
the modeling, design, decision making, and communication in these
systems. While the course will focus on frameworks, methodologies,
and algorithms, it will investigate (and illustrate) them in the context
of a wide range of application areas, including multi-robot systems,
distributed scheduling and resource allocation, sensor networks,
distributed information extraction, and network security.

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 Course Overview
 Course Topics:
 Representations and modeling
 Game theory:
 Matrix and repeat games, stochastic and Bayesian games
 Auction mechanisms
 Sealed bid and Vickrey auctions, English and Dutch
auctions, combinatorial auctions
 Multiagent Communication
 Multiagent Learning
 Coalitional Game Theory
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 Course Overview
 Prerequisites:
Many of the techniques covered in this course are based on
probabilities and random processes and a basic background in
statistics is required for the course (CSE 5301 or equivalent).
In addition, experience with Algorithms (CSE 5311), Artificial
Intelligence (CSE 5360), and programming will be useful to
perform assignments and projects

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 Course Overview
 Course Page and Materials
Textbook:
Y. Shoham, K. Leyton-Brown, Multiagent Systems: Algorithmic, Game-
Theoretic, and Logical Foundations, Cambridge Press, 2009.
(Available at http://www.masfoundations.org/downloading.html )

Course web page:

http://www-cse.uta.edu/~huber/cse6369_multi-agent.
E-Mail: huber@cse.uta.edu

Tentative Office Hours

M 2:00-2:45, W 7:00-8:00, Th 2:00-3:00 ERB 128 or ERB 522
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 Course Overview
 Course Work:
 In-class presentation of a technical paper
 Two homework assignments:
 Two small projects
 Final course project
 Grading Policy:
Presentation \& Class Participation 15 %
Assignments 30 %
Projects 30 %
Final Project 25 %
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 Multiagent Systems and
Distributed Decision Making
 Multiagent Systems:
A system consisting of multiple agents that interact (directly or
indirectly through the environment) and reason and make
decisions individually (generally with incomplete local
information).

 Centralized Systems:
A central coordinator determines the actions that each agent in the
system should take

 Distributed Systems:
Each agent has to determine the action to be taken (including the
exchange of information) based on its local information

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 Collaborative and Competitive
Systems
 Collaborative Multiagent Systems:
 Agents have the same desires
 Well defined optimality
 Issues:
 Coordination between distributed agents
 Communication and bandwidth
 Competitive Multiagent Systems:
 Different desires for different agents
 Optimality only defined for individual agents
 Issues:
 Optimal decision making
 Interpretation of communication (agents can lie)
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 Multiagent Decision Making
 Agents and Rationality
To make decisions, agents have to be able to
determine what action is the best for them.
 Rationality:

 Rational agents make the decisions that result in the

highest payoff for them (self-interest)
 Rational agents do not take actions to harm others
 Payoff is quantified in terms of utility

 Multiagent Systems and Optimality

Maximizing an agent’s utility is not always rational
 The Commons problem

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 Multiagent Decision Making
 Multiagent Decisions:
 In competitive systems (even deterministic ones)
optimal decisions often have to be
nondeterministic
 An agent’s utility achieved depends not only on
its own actions but also on the actions of the
other agents
 Decision Theory:
 Combines probability, utility theory and rationality
to allow an agent to determine the best action in a
given situation

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 Multiagent Systems

Background - Probability

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 Probability
 Bayesian probabilities summarize the effects
of uncertainty on the state of knowledge
 Probabilities represent the values of statistics
 P(o) = (# of times of outcome o) / (# of outcomes)
 All types of uncertainty are incorporated into a
single number
P(H | E)
 Probabilities follow a set of strict axioms

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 Probability
 Random variables define the entities of
probability theory
 Propositional random variables:
 E.g.: IsRed, Earthquake
 Multivalued random variables:
 E.g.: Color, Weather
 Potentially Real-Valued
 E.g.: Height, Weight
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 Axioms of Probability
 Probability follows a fixed set of rules
 Propositional random variables:
 P(A)  [0..1]
 P(T) = 1 , P(F) = 0
 P(AB) = P(A) + P(B) – P(AB)
 P(AB) = P(A) P(B|A)
 xValues(X) P(X=x) = 1

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 Probability Syntax
 Unconditional or prior probabilities represent
the state of knowledge before new
observations or evidence
 P(H)
 A probability distribution gives values for all
possible assignments to a random variable
 A joint probability distribution gives values
for all possible assignments to all random
variables
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 Conditional Probability
 Conditional probabilities represent the
probability after certain observations or
facts have been considered
 P(H|E) is the posterior probability of H
after evidence E is taken into account
 Bayes rule allows to derive posterior
probabilities from prior probabilities
 P(H | E) = P(E | H) P(H)/P(E)
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 Conditional Probability
 Probability calculations can be
conditioned by conditioning all terms
 Often it is easier to find conditional
probabilities
 Conditions can be removed by
marginalization
 P(H) = E P(H|E) P(E)

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 Joint Distributions
 A joint distribution defines the
probability values for all possible
assignments to all random variables
 Exponential in the number of random
variables
 Conditional probabilities can be computed
from a joint probability distribution
 P(A|B) = P(AB)/P(B)
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 Inference
 Inference in probabilistic representation
involves the computation of
(conditional) probabilities from the
available information
 Most frequently the computation of a
posterior probability P(H|E) form a prior
probability P(H) and new evidence E

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