Utility-based Decision Making in Collective Adaptive Systems

Large-scale systems comprising of multiple heterogeneous entities are directly influenced by the interactions of their participating entities. Such entities, both physical and virtual, attempt to satisfy their objectives by dynamically collaborating with each other, and thus forming collective adaptive systems. These systems are subject to the dynamicity of the entities’ objectives, and to changes to the environment. In this work we focus on the latter, i.e. on providing the means for entities in such systems to model, monitor and evaluate their perceived utility by participating in the system. This allows for them to make informed decisions about their interactions with other entities in the system. For this purpose we propose a utility-based approach for decision making, as well as an architecture that allows for the support of this approach.