Multi-agent systems is the study of interaction between multiple self-interested agents. The aim of this course is to provide an introduction to multi-agent systems, methods and algorithms to analyze several such systems under different settings. In particular, this course focuses on Game theory - cooperative and non-cooperative games, auctions and negotiation based methods. The multi-agent system techniques are general and have wide range of applications like e-commerce, robotics, health management, etc. The main application domain for this course is multi-robot systems.
At the end of the course, the student will
Understand the concept of an agent and the underlying decision-making process that enables the agent to pursue its desired goals in uncertain and dynamic environments
Understand how to model a multi-agent system for cooperative and non-cooperative (competitive) situations, the theoretical framework for such systems, and the outcomes possible from such systems
Have the ability to
program a multi-agent system
design a cooperative and non-cooperative (competitive) environment
design the interaction and information sharing mechanism between agents
implement different types of solution techniques - game theoretical strategies, auctions, negotiation strategies and swarm intelligence
analyze computational complexity of the solution concepts