The Value of Information in Multi-Objective Missions

In many multi-objective missions there are situations when actions based on maximum information gain may not be the `best' given the overall mission objectives. In addition to properties such as entropy, information also has value, which is situationally dependent. This thesis examines the concept of information value in a multi-objective mission from an information theory perspective. A derivation of information value is presented that considers both the context of information, via a fused world belief state, and a system mission. The derived information value is used as part of the objective function for control of autonomous platforms within a framework developed for human robot cooperative control. A simulated security operation in a structured environment is implemented to test both the framework, and information value based control. The simulation involves a system of heterogeneous, sensor equipped Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), tasked with gathering information regarding ground vehicles. The UAVs support an e ort to protect a number of important buildings in the area of operation. Thus, the purpose of the information is to aid the security operation by ensuring that security forces can deploy e ciently to counter any threat. A number of di erent local controllers using information based control are implemented and compared to a task based control scheme. The relative performance of each is examined with respect to a number of performance metrics with conclusions drawn regarding the performance and exibility of information value based control

How Valuable are Shopbots?

The price information that shopbots provide to buyers is clearly valuable, as it enables them to make a better informed choice of product and vendor. We quantify the value of this price information to the buyer in terms of the price dispersion and the buyer's brand preferences, and consider scenarios in which the buyer pays a seller, a shopbot, or some other third party for price information. As an illustration, we compute the value of price information of well known retailers in online book markets, using data on price dispersion and brand preferences reported by Smith and Brynjolfsson, finding that information about a book's price can be about 6% to 10% as valuable as the book itself