Real-Time Satisficing Multiagent Coalition Formation

In a multiagent system where each agent has only an incomplete view of the world, optimal coalition formation is difficult. Coupling that with real-time and resource constraints often makes the rationalization process infeasible or costly. We propose a coalition formation approach that identifies and builds sub-optimal yet satisficing coalitions among agents to solve a problem detected in the environment. All agents are peers and autonomous—each controlling a set of resources, monitoring a part of the world, and able to change the world through its actions. Each is motivated to conserve its own resources while cooperating with other agents to achieve a global task or resource allocation goal. The (initiating) agent—that detects a problem—hastily forms an initial coalition by selecting neighboring agents that it considers to have high potential utilities, based on the capability of each neighbor and its respective inter-agent relationships. The initiating agent next finalizes the coalition via multiple concurrent 1-to-1 negotiations with only neighbors of high potential utility, during which constraints and commitments are exchanged in an argumentation setting. Finally, the initiating agent acknowledges the status of a coalition, a responsible act that seals the validity of a planned coalition.