Minimally Intrusive Negotiating Agents for Resource Sharing

Abstract

We study the problem of agents negotiating periods of time during which they can have use of resources, thus allowing for the sharing of resources. We define a multi-stage negotiation framework where agents, in order to obtain resources, step through a sequence of stages, each characterised by an increased chance of a mutually agreeable deal but at the price of disclosing more and more information. In the sequence, the agents may agree to move to the next stage if the previous stage fails to produce a deal amongst them. In this paper, we concentrate on two early negotiation stages, characterised by minimal disclosure of information. Thus, the agents negotiating at these stages can be thought of as "minimally intrusive".