Decision theory and coordination in multiagent systems

Abstract

The aim of this report is to provide an introduction to the theoretical foundations of rational decision making and to give an overview of how decision theory and game theory relate to the field of multiagent systems. We start with presenting the basic framework of classic decision and game theory as it was defined by von Neumann and Morgenstern and continue with explaining the approach of Rosenschein and Zlotkin to apply game theory to multiagent systems. Subsequently, we investigate the principles of coordination mechanism design from an economic point of view and present several auction-based allocation mechanisms. Finally, the transportation domain is introduced as an application example in order to show the importance of the presented concepts in real-world multiagent applications.