Authors:
Fabian Lang
and
Andreas Fink
Affiliation:
Helmut Schmidt University Hamburg, Germany
Keyword(s):
Multi-Agent Systems, Negotiation Protocol, Software Agents, Cooperation, Group Decision Making.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Agents
;
Artificial Intelligence
;
Artificial Intelligence and Decision Support Systems
;
Bioinformatics
;
Biomedical Engineering
;
Cooperation and Coordination
;
Distributed and Mobile Software Systems
;
Enterprise Information Systems
;
Group Decision Making
;
Information Systems Analysis and Specification
;
Knowledge Engineering and Ontology Development
;
Knowledge-Based Systems
;
Methodologies and Technologies
;
Multi-Agent Systems
;
Negotiation and Interaction Protocols
;
Operational Research
;
Simulation
;
Software Engineering
;
Symbolic Systems
Abstract:
Automated negotiation is regarded as an essential method for the coordination of software agents. However,
without adequate protocols, negotiations are susceptible to malicious and strategic behavior of the agents –
especially when interdependencies of contract items lead to complex contract spaces. In this study, we propose
a mediator-based protocol employing acceptance quotas to ensure cooperative behavior in inter-organizational
systems. Furthermore, we evaluate three potential extensions to the basic protocol. We have conducted simulation
experiments for evaluation which show that the proposed protocol can ensure an effective welfare
performance and that the proposed extensions can result in a further improvement of the basic protocol.