Automated Negotiation: Prospects, Methods and Challenges

This paper has argued that automated negotiation is a central concern for multi-agent systems research. To this end, a generic framework for classifying and viewing automated negotiations is developed. This framework was then used to discuss and analyse the three main methods of approach that have been adopted to automated negotiation: 1. game theoretic, 2. heuristic, and 3. argumentation-based approaches. For each approach, a brief appraisal of its relative merits and drawbacks is presented. This assessment was generally performed in the context of the author's own models.