Efficient Contract-Net Protocol For Formal Modeling Of Multi-Agent Systems

Abstract

Contract net protocol is widely used in multi-agent systems because of its high extensibility and flexibility in a dynamic environment. However, many shortages exist while applying the traditional contract net protocol in multi-agent systems, such as rapidly increasing of the negotiation cost along with the system’s dimension, no guarantee of the negotiation quality and difficulties in adapting the dynamic environment, etc. A multi-agent negotiation model based on the acquaintance coalition and the extended contract-net protocol is presented to improve the efficiency of the negotiation. The structure of the multi-agent negotiation model is given to support the extended contract-net protocol. The acquaintance coalition policy, the trust degree parameter and the adjustment rules are introduced and used to construct the extended contract-net protocol. Thus, it enhances the time efficiency for the negotiation process between contractor and the bidder. Main contribution of this research is the efficient contract-net protocol which helps agents to achieve efficiency during the task allocation method.