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International Conference on Active Media Technology

AMT 2012: Active Media Technology pp 93–102Cite as

Distributed Protocols for Multi-Agent Coalition Formation: A Negotiation Perspective

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 7669))

Abstract

We investigate collaborative multi-agent systems and how they can use simple, scalable negotiation protocols to coordinate in a fully decentralized manner. Specifically, we study multi-agent distributed coalition formation. We summarize our past and ongoing research on collaborative coalition formation and describe our original distributed coalition formation algorithm. The present paper focuses on negotiation-based view of coalition formation in collaborative Multi-Agent Systems (MAS). While negotiation protocols have been extensively studied in the context of competitive, self-interested agents, we argue that negotiation-based approach may be potentially very useful in the context of collaborative agents, as well – as long as those agents, due to limitations of their sensing and communication abilities, have different views of and preferences over the states of the world. In particular, we show that our coalition formation algorithm has several important, highly desirable properties when viewed as a negotiation protocol.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Houston, 4800 Calhoun Road, Houston, Texas, USA

    Predrag T. Tošić & Carlos Ordonez

Authors
  1. Predrag T. Tošić
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  2. Carlos Ordonez
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Computer and Information Sciences, Hosei University, 3-7-2, Kajino-cho, 184-8584, Koganei-shi, Tokyo, Japan

    Runhe Huang

  2. Faculty of Computer Science, University of New Brunswick, Box 440, E3B 5A3, Fredicton, NB, Canada

    Ali A. Ghorbani

  3. Department of Informatics, Systems and Communication, University of Milano Bicocca, Viale Sarca 336, 20126, Milano, Italy

    Gabriella Pasi

  4. Department of Administration Engineering, Keio University, 3-14-1 Hiyoshi, 223-8522, Kohoku-ku, Yokohama, Japan

    Takahira Yamaguchi

  5. University of Aizu, 102-C, Research Quadrangles, Tsuruga, Ikki-machi, 965-8580, Aizu-Wakamatsu City, Fukushima, Japan

    Neil Y. Yen

  6. Institute of Software, Chinese Academy of Sciences, no.4 Nan Sie Jie, Zhong Guan Cun, Hai Dian Qu, 100190, Beijing, China

    Beijing Jin

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© 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Tošić, P.T., Ordonez, C. (2012). Distributed Protocols for Multi-Agent Coalition Formation: A Negotiation Perspective. In: Huang, R., Ghorbani, A.A., Pasi, G., Yamaguchi, T., Yen, N.Y., Jin, B. (eds) Active Media Technology. AMT 2012. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7669. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-35236-2_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-35236-2_10

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-35235-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-35236-2

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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