A preference processing model for cooperative agents

When multiple valid solutions are available to a problem, preferences can be used to indicate a choice. In a distributed system, such a preference-based solution can be produced autonomous agents cooperating together, but the attempt will lead to contention if the same resource is given preference by several user-agents. To resolve such contentions, this paper proposes a market-based payment scheme for selling and buying preferences by the contenders, in which the best solution is defined as the one where as many preferences as theoretically possible are globally met. After exploring the nature of preference, the paper develops a preference processing model based on the market based scheme, and presents a theoretical performance model to verify the correctness of the processing model. This verification is provided by a simulation study of the processing model.