Cooperative Meeting Scheduling among Agents Based on Multiple Negotiations

Abstract

We present a method for multi-agent negotiation for implementing a distributed meeting scheduler. In this system, an agent is assigned to an user who plans to schedule private events. Each agent negotiates with other agents in order to make a public schedule by referring user's private schedules and preferences. We propose a new persuasion method for multi-agent negotiation for reflecting private preferences. We call this method the Multiple Negotiations. The multiple negotiations can effectively facilitate reaching an agreement among agents. In the multiple negotiations, agents conduct all combinations of negotiation in which each agent has an opportunity for persuading the others. In addition, we propose an effective preference revision mechanism based on the multi attribute utility theory. The mechanism facilitates negotiation among agents and improves quality of the multiple negotiations. We have implemented a distributed meeting scheduler to show how effectively the multiple negotiations can be used. The result shows that the multiple negotiations are effective in supporting group decision-making for scheduling a meeting.