A negotiation protocol for conflict resolution in multi-agent environments

Abstract

In multi-agent systems where each agent has a different goal, agents must be able to resolve conflicts arising in the process of achieving their goals, without sufficient knowledge about other agents. A method is presented for conflict resolution in which agents are allowed to have partial knowledge about other agents. A negotiation protocol is proposed for conflict resolution under a set of assumptions that makes the world of agents resemble a real system. The authors' negotiation protocol can be applied to conflicts on both consumable and reusable types of resources. It is shown that agents can cooperate with each other even when information about resources is incomplete. Some results on a negotiation protocol are presented.<>