Experimenting With Proxy Agents In Online Combinatorial Auctions

To promote online eBay-like combinatorial auctions, the authors experiment with a distributive agent based mechanism PRACA which attempts to address two research issues. First, the scheme uses an algorithm CompDL to incrementally solve the Winner Determination Problem under limited memory for any package that the bidder may be interested to bid at any time. This helps the bidder to bid effectively knowing the current state of the auction. CompDL thereby allows a large number of items to be put on auction. Second, PRACA supplies an autonomous proxy agent to each bidder who logs in to an ongoing auction; this agent bids on the bidder's behalf and relays data on requested packages to the bidder. Therefore, PRACA helps in reducing operational overheads of seller and bidder in online combinatorial auctions. Both schemes have been implemented and the efficacy of the approach is demonstrated by experiments.