Multi-Agent%20System%20for%20Online%20Auctions

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Multi-Agent System for Online Auctions

• Jose Manuel Valladares Pernas
• CIS Master Project - Fall 2004
• Advisor Dr. Haiping Xu

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Multi-Agent System for Online Auctions

• What is an agent?
• An intelligent agent is a semi-autonomous
  computer program capable of carrying out one or
  more tasks specified by the user or another
  program.
• Like a software robot capable of being
  programmed to carry out a wide variety of tasks.
• Main Properties
• Autonomy agents operate without the direct
  intervention of humans or others, and have some
  kind of control over their actions and internal
  state.
• Social Ability agents interact with other agents
  (and possibly humans) via some kind of
  agent-communication language.
• Reactivity agents perceive their environment,
  and respond in a timely fashion to changes that
  occur in it.
• Pro-activeness agents do not simply act in
  response to their environment, they are able to
  exhibit goal-directed behavior by taking the
  initiative.

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Multi-Agent System for Online Auctions

• Objective of the Project
• Design and develop an auction system based on an
  existing multi-agents framework (JADE).
• Provide an agent system that facilitates online
  auctions on behalf of users.
• Provide agents to the users with different
  strategies for the searching and bidding on
  items.
• Test and compare the different strategies for
  searching and bidding for items.
• Requirements of the System
• Allow different types of auctions (English,
  Dutch, ).
• For every type of auction provide several
  strategies for the agents.
• In addition of delegating the searching and
  bidding to the agents, the user can also interact
  with the system directly.

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Multi-Agent System for Online Auctions

• Description of JADE
• JADE stands for Java Agent Development Framework
  (www.jade.tilab.com).
• Open source platform implemented in Java
  (ubiquity, portability).
• Complies with the FIPA specification.
• Support asynchronous message passing
  communication.
• Features of JADE
• Agents can be distributed across machines.
• Supports agent migration.
• Includes graphical tools to monitor the agents.
• LEAP add-on lightweight libraries to use in
  mobile phones or PDAs.

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Multi-Agent System for Online Auctions

• Architecture

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Multi-Agent System for Online Auctions

• Another view

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Multi-Agent System for Online Auctions

• Main Agent
• Responsible to create new users, login, create
  auctions and get the list of auctions.
• Creates the Auction Agent when a new auction is
  added to the system.
• Responds to the queries for items or auctions.
• Auction Agent
• In charge of the control of a particular auction.
• Users register to the auction and then send bids
  to the Auction Agent. The Auction Agent notifies
  the registered users of the price changes of the
  item.
• At the end of the auction, this agent notifies
  the winner and the seller and passes control to
  the Main Agent.
• When the auction is over, this agent is deleted.

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Multi-Agent System for Online Auctions

• GUI Agent
• Receives commands from the user and acts
  correspondingly. It doesnt have pro-active
  behavior.
• It does all the actions available in the user
  interface.
• Updates the auction information when messages are
  received from the other agents.
• Bidding Agent
• It is responsible of placing bids automatically
  on behalf of the user.
• It can be configured by the user using one of the
  available strategies (OneShotBid, PeriodicBid,
  AlwaysFirst, ).
• Search Agent
• Responsible for searching for items on behalf of
  the user.
• Notifies the user when auctions of her desired
  items are available.

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Multi-Agent System for Online Auctions

• Auction State Diagram

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Multi-Agent System for Online Auctions

• JADE Behaviours
• A behaviour is basically an Event Handler, a
  method which describes how an agent reacts to an
  event the reception of a message or a Timer
  interrupt.
• The Event Handler code is placed in a method
  called action. Every behaviour is scheduled
  following a round robin algorithm.
• Methods of the agents involving behaviours
  addBehaviour, removeBehaviour.
• Examples of Behaviours already included in JADE
• SimpleBehaviour CyclicBehaviour
• TickerBehaviour WakerBehaviour
• ReceiverBehaviour
• ParallelBehaviour SequentialBehaviour

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Multi-Agent System for Online Auctions

• Class Diagram of the System

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Multi-Agent System for Online Auctions

• Detail of Strategies

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Multi-Agent System for Online Auctions

• How it works
• Every strategy (BidConfiguration) contains an
  object behaviour that extends one of the JADE
  Behaviours.
• In the action of the behaviour is where the
  negotiation for the bidding happens.
• The BidConfiguration object contains also a
  JPanel where the user enters the parameters for
  the bidding.
• This JPanel is displayed inside a Dialog where
  the user chooses the strategy with a combo box.

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Multi-Agent System for Online Auctions

• How it works (II)
• When the user enters the information for the
  automatic bidding
• The BidConfiguration object is populated with the
  data and passed to the BiddingAgent.
• The BiddingAgent calls the setupBehaviour method
  that registers the behaviour object contained in
  the BidConfiguration.
• When the event that the behaviour is listening to
  happens the method action is called and the
  bidding happens.

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Multi-Agent System for Online Auctions

• Steps to Add a new Strategy
• Create a class that implements IBidConfiguration.
• Contains a JPanel to show for the strategy
  configuration.
• Contains a behaviour that extends one of the JADE
  Behaviours.
• Current status of the Project
• Implementation finished.
• Pending Test cases.
• Pending Final Document.