A Model of Many Goal- Oriented Stochastic Automata with Application on a Marketing Problem

Here presented is a model of many goal-oriented stochastic automata. The goal of each automaton is the extremum of the absolute mean value of a certain utility function. That function depends explicitly on the automaton strategy and the environment response. Without need of any a priori knowledge each automaton adapts its structure in the process of achieving its own goal. By suitably setting the environment characteristics the automata model can be useful for the analysis of some operations research problems. As example that model is used for the study of the price formation process in a free competitive market. The results demonstrated the convergence of the automata updating scheme as well as the influence of a number of interesting physical parameters (like the buyers tactics, the sellers psychology, etc...) on the equilibrium condition.