A formal framework for connective stability of highly decentralized cooperative negotiations

Abstract. Multiagent cooperative negotiation is a promising technique for modeling and controlling complex systems. Effective and flexible cooperative negotiations are especially useful for open complex systems characterized by high decentralization (which implies a low amount of exchanged information) and by dynamic connection and disconnection of agents. Applications include ad hoc network management, vehicle formation, and physiological model combination. To obtain an effective control action, the stability of the negotiation, namely the guarantee that an agreement will be eventually reached, is of paramount importance. However, the techniques usually employed for assessing the stability of a negotiation can be hardly applied in open scenarios. In this paper, whose nature is mainly theoretical, we make a first attempt towards engineering stable cooperative negotiations proposing a framework for their analysis and design. Specifically, we present a formal protocol for cooperativ...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2007
• Where: AAMAS
• Authors: Francesco Amigoni, Nicola Gatti
• Keywords: AAMAS 2007, Complex Systems, Cooperative Negotiations, Intelligent Agents, flexible Cooperative Negotiations