Modeling Trust Evaluating Agents: Towards a Comprehensive Trust Management for Multi-agent Systems

In multiagent systems, if interactions are based on trust, trustworthy trustees will have a greater impact on the results of interactions. Consequently, building a high trust may be an advantage for rational trustees. This work describes a trust establishment model that goes beyond trust evaluation to outline actions to direct trustees (instead of trusters). The model uses the number of transactions performed by trusters. A trustee will adjust its performance, depending on the average number of transactions carried out by that truster, relative to the mean number of transactions performed by all trusters interacting with this trustee. The proposed model does not depend on direct feedback, nor does it rely on current reputation of trustees in the community. Simulation results indicate that trustees empowered with the proposed model can be selected more by trusters.