An English Auction Protocol for Multi-attribute Items

In this paper, we suggest using an English Auction Protocol for a procurement multi-attribute auction in which the item for sale is defined by several attributes, the buyer agent is the auctioneer, and the seller agents are the bidders. Such domains include auctions on task allocation, services, or compound products. At the beginning of the auction the buyer agent announces the required properties of the item, and then various seller agents propose bids, which are composed of specific configurations that match its request. Each proposed bid should be better for the buyer agent than the previous bid, w.r.t. the announced requirements of the buyer agent. Finally, the last suggested bid will win, and the seller agent that suggested this bid will be committed to it. We consider two utility function models for the English auction protocols and provide the optimal bidding strategies for the seller agents and the optimal auction design for the buyer agents regarding both models.