35532626
Bid Selection Strategies for Multi-agent Contracting in the Presence of Scheduling Constraints
Bid evaluation in a multi-agent automated contracting environment presents a challenging search problem. We introduce a multicriterion, anytime bid evaluation strategy that incorporates cost, task coverage, temporal feasibility, and risk estimation into a simulated annealing framework. We report on an experimental evaluation using a set of increasingly informed search heuristics within simulated annealing. The results show that excess focus on improvement leads to faster improvement early on, at the cost of a lower likelihood of finding a solution that satisfies all the constraints. The most successful approach used a combination of random and focused bid selection methods, along with pruning and repeated restarts.
10289458
Design of supplier agents for an auction-based market
We are interested in supporting multi-agent contracting in which customer agents solicit the resources and capabilities of other self-interested supplier agents in order to accomplish their goals. Goals may involve the execution of multi-step tasks in which different tasks are contracted out to different suppliers. 
 
In this paper we focus on the design of supplier agents. The agents are designed to operate in the context of the MAGNET (Multi AGent NEgotiation Testbed) system, but the design could easily be adapted to other situations in which agents interact through a market infrastructure. 
 
MAGNET supplier agents can register their capabilities with the market, be notified of open and relevant requests for quotations, and submit bids that specify which tasks they are able to undertake, when they are available to perform those tasks, and at what price. Supplier agents attempt to maximize the value of their resources. 
 
The paper describes the detailed design of supplier agents and presents preliminary experimental results.
59716230
Outline or bitmap type
114125959
Documenting protocols in CLOS: keeping the promise of reuse
39929543
Spike: A Six Legged Cube Style Robot
This paper describes a six legged cube based robot named ‘Spike’, which uses three axes of symmetry with a collinear pair of legs mounted on each axis. Spike is designed to implement a novel form of locomotion which uses a tilting and falling motion as a result of leg movements to form its gait. Due to the triangular symmetry inherent in the robot’s footprint, each step the robot takes is limited to one of three directions. At rest, the robot has three points of contact with the ground and all sides share equal length to form a tripedal stance. The gait is generated by directing a single leg toward the bisector of the opposing side, causing the robot to tumble, and fall into a new leg configuration. It was found that the robot was able to move along an angle of trajectory, where the accuracy of following the trajectory over time was dependant on the number of steps made.