Affiliations: Computer and Information Science Department,
University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, MA, USA. E-mail:
[email protected] | Computer Science Department, University of
Massachusetts at Amherst, MA, USA. E-mail: [email protected] | Information Processing Technology Office, Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency, USA. E-mail: [email protected]
Abstract: In this paper, we present a layered agent framework in which the
negotiation process is performed at different levels of abstractions. In a real
time, multiple-tasking, resource-bounded environment, negotiation is not an
isolated process but one that interleaved with agent's many other activities,
such as scheduling, execution, and other negotiations. To make the complexities
of negotiation more tractable, the negotiation process is performed at two
abstraction levels to reduce the complexity of the search. The upper level
deals with the formation of high-level goals and objectives for the agent, and
the decision about whether or not to negotiate with other agents to achieve
particular goals, in what order the multiple related negotiations should be
performed, and what negotiation attitude should be used for each negotiation.
Negotiation at this upper level determines the rough scope of the commitment
(i.e. the time and the quality characteristics) and the cost of the
commitment. The lower level deals with feasibility and implementation
operations, such as the detailed analysis of candidate tasks and actions and
the formation of the detailed temporal/resource-specific commitments among
agents; negotiation at this level involves refinement of the rough commitments
proposed at the upper level. The experimental work shows this two-level
negotiation framework enables the agent to handle complicated negotiation
issues and uncertainties in a more efficient way.
Keywords: layered negotiation, autonomous agents, multi-agent systems
