Negotiation and Conflict Resolution

This chapter addresses the nature and use of negotiation protocols and of negotiation strategies. It looks at a number of possible conflict situations in the area of concurrent design and manufacturing and discusses the research literature in the related sections and provides additional references. Conflict resolution combines search and solution composition. Local search by an agent produces a solution to a subproblem. Negotiation protocols set the stage for the negotiation process. The protocol contains the basic rules for the negotiation process and the communication. Negotiation dialogues arise when there are conflicts of interest among selfish agents over scarce resources. In auction type negotiation, offers are made in terms of monetary quantities, and the dialogue reduces to a simple exchange of offers until an agreement is reached or allocated time is exhausted. The contract-net protocol provides for coordination in task allocation, with dynamic allocation and natural load balancing.