A simultaneous multi-issue negotiation through autonomous agents

Automated negotiation through autonomous agents has become increasingly important since the advent of e-marketplace. A deadlock may arise in which both negotiators refuse to disclose more information; then, mediation is required. We propose an agent-based sealed-bid design in which both agents simultaneously submit their respective offers to the mediate agent, and construct an efficient negotiation strategy which can reach an agreement aiming to maximize their owner's utility. An important contribution of this paper is that we consider negotiators not necessarily to conflict over all issues, such as quantity. Our experimental results demonstrate that the proposed automated negotiation strategy is efficient in terms of the Pareto-efficiency of the negotiated contracts, the joint utility obtained, and the equality of both agents. In addition, since disclosure of information is reduced greatly, the design can discourage counter-speculation and effectively control fraud and misrepresentation to a certain extent. The method we proposed is simple and stable in the context of a game and the model could be well suited for practical agent applications.